October 10, 2005
Supreme Court
:The John Roberts Court heard testimony last Wednesday on a high-profile assisted suicide case. In 1994, Oregon residents voted in favor of the Death with Dignity Act that allows terminally ill people who are likely to die within six months to take drugs to end their lives. In 2001, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, a long-time opponent of assisted suicide, issued an edict that doctors that prescribed drugs that ended a life could be prosecuted under Federal law. The Bush Administration is appealing an Appeals Court ruling against Ashcrofts decision, which stated that the Controlled Substances Act in 1970 does not give the attorney genral the unilateral authority to punish doctors who follow state law.
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