The court upholds a state law prohibiting physician-assisted suicide.

The "Supremes" decide on assisted suicide: what should a doctor do?

On June 26, 1997, the US Supreme Court ruled in 2 unanimous decisions that there is no constitutionally protected right to assisted suicide. Overturning 2 1996 Federal Appeals Court rulings that had struck down Washington and New York state laws prohibiting assisted suicide, the Supreme Court rejected 2 key arguments. First, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the right to liberty guar...

Physician-Assisted Suicide and the Right to Care.

In the same week that Dr Jack Kevorkian was acquitted for assisting in two suicides in Michigan,[1] the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit made a more critical judgment. On March 6, 1996, that federal court found that Washington State's law prohibiting physician-assisted suicide was unconstitutional.[2] Overturning their colleagues who sat on a three-judge Court of Appeals panel,[3] the fu...

Stemming the tide: assisted suicide and the constitution.

Oregon became the first state in the nation to legalize assisted suicide. Passage of Proposition 16 was a milestone in the campaign to make assisted suicide a legal option. The culmination of years of effort, the Oregon vote followed on the heels of failed referenda in California and Washington, and other unsuccessful attempts to enact state laws guaranteeing the right to suicide assistance. In...

The right to choose how to die: a constitutional analysis of state laws prohibiting physician-assisted suicide.

Oregon's guidelines for physician-assisted suicide: a legal and ethical analysis.

Oregon's Death with Dignity Act was first passed by a ballot initiative in 1994, but numerous judicial challenges delayed implementation of the Act. In November of 1997, following the United States Supreme Court decisions in Vacco v. Quill and Washington v. Glucksberg, which left the states' power to regulate physician-assisted suicide undisturbed, the Oregon voters upheld their law. Oregon rem...