THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 10, 1996 TAG: 9610100019
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 60 lines
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to wade into the troubled waters surrounding the ethics of dying, thereby assuring that the term which began Monday will be among its most memorable in recent years.
Two physician-assisted suicide cases top a docket that includes an unusually large number of provocative matters. With a rapidly aging citizenry, Americans will be looking to the court for guidance on the soundness of state statutes that restrict the right to die.
Drama on the high court will not be limited to an issue given macabre prominence due to the activities of Jack Kevorkian, however. Also up for review in the 1996-97 term will be the constitutionality of the Brady gun-control law, the right of Paula Jones to press a private civil lawsuit against President Clinton while he is in office and yet another Georgia congressional voting-rights case.
The doctrine of federalism, in which states reserve powers not assigned to the federal government, is a favorite cause of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. But it would be unfortunate if that principle should be used to invalidate the Brady law, requiring criminal-background checks on gun purchasers. There is a compelling national interest in continued monitoring of gun sales.
Informed observers differ on where the court is likely to come down regarding physician-assisted suicide. The high court's most recent relevant decision was in the 1990 case, Cruzan vs. Missouri Department of Health. An injured woman had been kept alive on a feeding tube against her parents' understanding of her wishes. In a cautiously worded opinion, the court held that a competent person has a ``liberty interest'' or right to refuse unwanted medical help.
Now, the justices will be reviewing appeals court decisions from the states of New York and Washington. The rulings overturn state laws prohibiting forms of physician-assisted suicide. Judges in both circuits found that there is no constitutional difference between death by removal of life supports and death by the injection or ingestion of fatal medications.
About 40 states, including Virginia, have laws similar to those struck down that seek to ban the latter practices.
The Washington court based its decision on what judges called a ``privacy right'' to assisted suicide, found in the Constitution's guarantee of due process. The New York judges, in what legal scholars see as a rationale more likely to appeal to the Supreme Court, relied on the 14th Amendment's equal-protection clause.
As Kevorkian's flagrant disregard of state laws makes clear, guiding physicians and patients in determining questions of life and death is profoundly difficult. Any relaxation of current standards must be coupled with strict protections for incompetents. Nor should the court try to force a national consensus where none exists. Nonetheless, at a time when longer life often means an agonizing death, all of our institutions must struggle to clarify when and how self-chosen death can be condoned and assisted.
This is a court cautious about pushing sweeping social change, as well it should be. But having agreed to look at physician-assisted suicide, the judges must weigh traditional morality against the ever-spiraling medical advances of a technological age. by CNB