Here is a link to an article in the National Right to Life News about this important decision. This decision follows the trend (which is of course not universal) of state supreme courts (even quite liberal such courts) rejecting the argument that there is a fundamental constitutional right to assisted suicide under the state constitution. […]
Category: Constitutionality
Here is a link to a Reuters story on the oral argument before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. The Court is considering whether there is a state constitutional right to assisted suicide. In 1997, the US Supreme Court rejected a federal constitutional challenge to laws banning assisted suicide.
By a vote of 52-48, the US Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Barrett replaces Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died on September 18, 2020. Barrett adheres to the same judicial philosophy as Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom Barrett clerked in the late 1990s. As a […]
Here is a link to a good article by Michael Cook on a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany. The decision endorses the legality of assisted suicide. As Cook states, the court “ruled that a law banning suicide with professional assistance was unconstitutional, as it deprived terminally ill patients of ‘the right to […]
Here is a link to the June 30, 2016 decision by the New Mexico Supreme Court upholding the state’s ban on assisted suicide. A trial court judge in New Mexico had found the law unconstitutional. By a divided vote, the court of appeals reversed and the New Mexico Supreme Court has now also rejected the trial judge’s decision. […]
Here are a couple of articles on today’s decision from the Supreme Court of Canada invalidating laws banning physician assisted suicide. The Court overruled its earlier decision in the Rodriguez case, which had rejected a constitutional challenge to such laws. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-canadas-top-court-rules-doctors-can-help-kill-patients Canada Strikes Down Ban on Assisted Suicide, Says it Violates the Right to Life […]
Here is a LifeNews.com story about a decision from the British Columbia Supreme Court holding a ban on assisted suicide unconstitutional. http://www.lifenews.com/2012/06/15/canadas-assisted-suicide-ban-struck-down-in-court/ Here’s critical commentary from Wesley Smith. http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2012/06/15/bc-judge-creates-right-to-suicide/ Richard M.
SSRN has a new student article, Exploring the Potential for American Death Tourism. The author discusses the availability of physician assisted suicide in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg, and the possibility that American citizens will travel to these countries to die. He evaluates the enforcement and efficacy of foreign laws prohibiting travel for purposes […]
The Farewell Foundation for the Right to Die has filed suit challenging the Registrar of Corporations denial of the organization’s application to incorporate. The Registrar denied the application on the basis that organizing to assist those who seek to commit suicide is not a legally permissible purpose. The petition in the law suit is available […]
I highly recommend Bob Destro’s article on the Terri Schiavo case. “Learning Neuroscience the Hard Way: The Terri Schiavo Case and the Ethics of Effective Representatation,” at 78 Miss. L. J. 833-903 (2009). There have been scores of articles on various aspects of the Schiavo controversy. (My own short paper on the Schiavo case is […]