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Gonzales v. Oregon (2006)
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Transcript
Overview
Constitutional Issues?
- In 1994, the Death With Dignity Act was passed in Oregon which authorized physicians to prescribe lethal doses of controlled substances to terminally ill patients
- However, in 2001 Attorney General John Ashcroft said that physician-assisted suicide violated the Controlled Substances Act of 1970
- Ashcroft threatened to revoke the license of those physicians who complied with the act, and therefore he was sued by the state of Oregon in federal district court
- "Physician-assisted suicide" was not a “legitimate medical purpose" according to the CSA. Which made any prescriptions written for that purpose unlawful and expose the offending medical practitioner to civil, or even criminal, sanctions
Gonzales v. Oregon (2006)
Court's Decision
Strict/loose?Judicial Restraint/ Judicial activism?
- The Ninth Circuit court found Ashcroft's actions illegal and stated that the Attorney General had no say in the regulation of physician-assisted suicide
- The court also ruled that states had complete control over medical matter of the sort, as they have historically
Gonzales v. Oregon is an example of Strict interpretation of the constitution as well as Judicial restraint in which the Supreme court dictated that the Attorney General did not have the authority to redefine drug laws and in no way did the constitution support such a claim.
You decide:
Should we have the power to decide whether physicians can prescribe lethal doses of controlled substances to terminally ill patients?
Court Decision Influenced?
Possibly influenced by
Main Argument of Majority/Concurring Opinion
Dissenting Opinions
- The majority opinion did not disagree with the power of the federal government to regulate drugs although they disagreed that the statute in place empowered the U.S. Attorney General to overrule state laws based on what constituted the appropriate use of medications that were not by themselves banned.
- Justice Scalia and Chief Justice Roberts disagreed with the court's decision.
- Scalia/Roberts said that under the Supreme Court precedent deference was due to the Attorney General's interpretation of the statute. They said it was not a 'legitimate medical purpose'
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