OSU Law Professor: Ruling in favor of Oregon assisted suicide law is flawed

COLUMBUS – A decision handed down today by a U.S. District Court judge appears to be a slap on the hand to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. But, according to Ohio State law professor Marc Spindelman, the reality of the ruling is that it poses a serious threat to constitutional principles of equality.

U.S. District Judge Robert Jones ruled that the U.S. Justice Department lacks the authority to overturn an Oregon law allowing physician-assisted suicides. In doing so, the judge’s opinion criticized Ashcroft’s determination that the federal Controlled Substances Act prohibits the practice.

“At bottom, the case is about the authority of the federal government to regulate the practice of physician-assisted suicide across the nation,” said Spindelman, an expert in bioethics and especially physician-assisted suicide and the “right to die.”

“The written opinion in the case purports to ‘resolve this case as a matter of statutory interpretation,’ saying that the ‘text and meaning’ of federal drug laws cannot be read to ban assisted suicide,” he noted.

“But behind this, ironically, the district court’s deference to a regressive vision of state sovereignty is palpable. In this sense at least, the court’s ruling functions as a victory for proponents of “states’ rights.”

Spindelman noted that “states’ rights,” historically, has been a slogan used to defend, among other things, unjust social practices as repugnant as slavery and racial segregation. “More recently it has been used to beat back federal efforts to eradicate age and sex and disability discrimination in -- and by -- the states,” he said.

“The district court’s decision in Oregon v. Ashcroft thus presents a serious threat to the constitutional value of substantive equality,” he added. “It reflects, certainly, it reinforces, ideas about the limited authority of the federal government -- ideas that have served to keep meaningful equality for all Americans out of reach. In light of this, the court’s utter failure to consider or address the justice-based implications of its pro-states’ rights ruling is not a virtue, but a major, major flaw.”

Professor Spindelman is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. He was a Reginald F. Lewis Fellow for Law Teaching at Harvard Law School and spent the two years as a Greenwall Fellow in Bioethics and Health Policy at Georgetown University Law Center and Johns Hopkins University. Prior to joining the faculty at the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University, he taught courses in bioethics, physician-assisted suicide, as well as public health ethics, at the University of Michigan Law School, the Georgetown University Law Center, and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.