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luvdemshrooms
Two inch dick..but it spins!?
Registered: 11/29/01
Posts: 34,247
Loc: Lost In Space
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Court Backs Oregon's Law Allowing Assisted Suicide
#2733043 - 05/26/04 03:35 PM (19 years, 10 months ago) |
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Court Backs Oregon's Law Allowing Assisted Suicide NewsMax.com Wires Wednesday, May 26, 2004 SAN FRANCISCO ? A federal appeals court, ordering the Bush administration not to meddle with Oregon's assisted suicide law, ruled Wednesday that doctors there may prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients.
Ruling on the nation's only law that allows doctors to assist in hastening the death of a patient, the court said U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft could not sanction or hold Oregon doctors criminally liable for prescribing overdoses, as the state's voter-approved Death With Dignity Act allows.
"The attorney general's unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician assisted suicide," wrote Judge Richard Tallman in the 2-1 opinion by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He said Ashcroft's action "far exceeds the scope of his authority under federal law."
The Justice Department had concluded that suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose," but Oregon maintained it had the power to declare for itself what types of medical procedures are allowed.
The case dates from April 2002, when a judge in Portland blocked the Justice Department from threatening to punish doctors. In a sharp rebuke to Ashcroft, U.S. District Judge Robert Jones ruled that the Controlled Substances Act, the federal law declaring what drugs doctors may prescribe, does not give the federal government the power to say what is a legitimate medical practice.
In a dissent Wednesday, 9th Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace said the courts should give "substantial deference" to the attorney general's findings in the absence of a clear congressional policy.
"Certainly, Congress is free to enact legislation limiting or counteracting the Ashcroft directive's effects," Wallace said.
Oregon voters approved the Death With Dignity Act in 1994 and overwhelmingly affirmed it three years later when it was returned to the ballot after a failed legal challenge that stalled its implementation.
The law allows terminally ill patients with less than six months to live to request a lethal dose of drugs. Two doctors must confirm the diagnosis and determine the patient to be mentally competent to make the request.
In a 1996 case in Washington state, the 9th Circuit ruled that assisted suicide was permitted because there was a constitutional right to die. That decision meant Washington state could not prosecute doctors who aided their patients' deaths.
But the following year, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed. It said states could prosecute doctors who assist in suicides, a move some interpreted as signaling that the justices were freeing the states to decide for themselves whether assisted suicide should be allowed.
Since 1998, at least 171 people have used the law to end their lives, according to Oregon state records. Most suffered from cancer.
Poison as 'Medicine'
Ashcroft's directive, which reversed a 1998 opinion by former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, also banned any lethal prescriptions on grounds they did not qualify as medication under the federal Controlled Substances Act.
Oregon argued that regulating and licensing doctors generally has been the sole responsibility of the states, which license doctors to practice medicine. Oregon also said that Congress intended only to prevent illegal drug trafficking by doctors under the Controlled Substances Act, and that it left decisions about medical practice up to the states.
? 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A good decision.
-------------------- You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers
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BleaK
paradox
Registered: 06/23/02
Posts: 1,583
Last seen: 10 years, 4 months
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Re: Court Backs Oregon's Law Allowing Assisted Suicide [Re: luvdemshrooms]
#2733172 - 05/26/04 03:58 PM (19 years, 10 months ago) |
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*applauds*
-------------------- "You cannot trust in law, unless you can trust in people. If you can trust in people, you don't need law." -J. Mumma
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afoaf
CEO DBK?
Registered: 11/08/02
Posts: 32,665
Loc: Ripple's Heart
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Re: Court Backs Oregon's Law Allowing Assisted Suicide [Re: luvdemshrooms]
#2733263 - 05/26/04 04:16 PM (19 years, 10 months ago) |
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thank god.
did they strike down jeb's new law in florida yet?
-------------------- All I know is The Growery is a place where losers who get banned here go.
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DailyPot
Trip'n Time
Registered: 11/17/02
Posts: 2,207
Loc: Florida
Last seen: 18 years, 2 months
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Re: Court Backs Oregon's Law Allowing Assisted Suicide [Re: luvdemshrooms]
#2750827 - 05/31/04 07:47 PM (19 years, 10 months ago) |
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I dont understand why this guy fights good things
Quote:
luvdemshrooms said: ? 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!
Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,215
Loc: High pride!
Last seen: 7 hours, 46 minutes
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Re: Court Backs Oregon's Law Allowing Assisted Suicide [Re: luvdemshrooms]
#2750975 - 05/31/04 08:41 PM (19 years, 10 months ago) |
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-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: Sons Of Adam - Feathered Fish
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 2 months, 8 days
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Re: Court Backs Oregon's Law Allowing Assisted Suicide [Re: luvdemshrooms]
#2752990 - 06/01/04 12:27 PM (19 years, 10 months ago) |
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> doctors there may prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients.
The law needs to stay out of doctor ethics... and doctors need to reread their oath of the hippocrates:
Quote:
I swear by Apollo the physician and ?sculapius, and Hygeia (Health), and Panacea (All-heal), and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation -- to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others.
I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgement, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons labouring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further, from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional service, or not in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret.
While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times. But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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