LifeSiteNews.com - The US Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments in its first assisted suicide case since 1997. The case, Gonzales v. Oregon, is the federal government’s challenge to Oregon’s assisted suicide law. It is also the first case for newly confirmed chief justice John Roberts, who joined the court September 29.
The Supreme Court has been asked to decide whether the lower federal courts properly ruled that former Attorney General John Ashcroft overstepped his authority as attorney general by issuing a 2001 directive that applied criminal penalties to doctors who participate in physician-assisted suicide in Oregon.
Ashcroft’s 2001 directive stated that “Assisting suicide is not a ‘legitimate medical purpose’ . . . and that prescribing, dispensing, or administering federally controlled substances to assist suicide violates the federal Controlled Substances Act.”
In November last year, Ashcroft requested an appeal of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals May 2004 ruling that upheld the Oregon law, sending the case to the Supreme Court.
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