the United States Constitution prevents
the government from intruding on many of
our intimate decisions but what about
one of the most intimate decisions of
all when and how to die this is the
question the Supreme Court was forced to
grapple with in Washington versus
glücksburg in 1854 Washington State
enacted a statute criminalizing assisted
suicide including physician assisted
suicide over a century later harold
Glucksberg a doctor who practiced
medicine in washington challenged the
modern version of that law Glucksberg
argued that the liberty interest
protected by the Due Process Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment included a
fundamental right to assisted suicide
Glucksberg described the liberty
interest more broadly as a right to die
the district court agreed with
Glucksberg and held the statute
unconstitutional on appeal the Ninth
Circuit affirmed the United States
Supreme Court granted cert
the question was whether the liberty
interest protected by the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
included a fundamental right to
assisted-suicide writing for a unanimous
Court Chief Justice Rehnquist held that
there is no fundamental right to
assisted suicide protected by the Due
Process Clause the court applied a
two-part analysis to determine whether
the right to assisted suicide was a
fundamental right first the court asked
whether the right was deeply rooted in
the nation's history and traditions the
court observed that Washington State's
assisted suicide ban was not unique in
fact similar laws existed in almost
every other state in the country further
the tradition of criminalizing or
prohibiting assisted suicide originated
in the common law extending as far back
as the colonial period therefore the
court concluded that the right to
assisted suicide wasn't deeply rooted in
the nation's history and traditions
second the court examined the
description of the asserted right to
determine if it was sufficiently
particular the court disagreed with
Glucksberg characterization of the right
at stick Glucksberg described the right
to broadly as a right to die which was
in a sufficiently particular description
rather the court viewed the right at
stake more narrowly as the right to
assisted suicide on this point the court
clarified the scope of a fundamental
right recognized in an earlier case
cruising versus director Missouri
Department of Health in cruising the
court had recognized that a person in a
persistent vegetative state has a right
to be taken off life support according
to the court
cruising was frequently depicted as
recognizing a broad right to die however
the court explained that the fundamental
right in cruising was the narrower right
to refuse life-saving medical treatment
not a general right to die
the court reasoned that forced medical
treatment constituted a form of common
law battery and therefore the right to
refuse medical treatment unlike the
right to assisted suicide was deeply
rooted in the nation's history and
traditions because there was no
fundamental right at stake the court
applied the rational basis test to the
law this test asks whether the law is
rationally related to a legitimate state
interest the court found that Washington
had a legitimate interest in preserving
life and protecting public trust in the
medical profession further these
interests were rationally related to the
ban Washington was reasonably concerned
that physician assisted suicide would
cause more deaths erode public trust in
the medical community and create
opportunities for coercion error and
abuse when treating terminally ill
patients therefore the court held that
Washington's assisted suicide ban didn't
violate the due process clause and
reversed the Ninth Circuit justice
Souter concurred in the judgment
elaborating on what he perceived was
Washington's strongest interest in
preserving human life he noted that it
was legitimate for the legislature to be
concerned that physicians might
administer life-ending medications out
of their own compassion for suffering
patients or because of financial
concerns even if the patient didn't
request the procedure
justice O'Connor wrote a concurring
opinion to argue that because there's no
constitutional right to suicide there's
no need to consider the narrower
question of whether there's a
constitutional right to physician
assisted suicide she also emphasized
that the law at issue did permit
terminally ill patients to receive pain
relieving medication even at levels that
increased the speed of death if a law
were to prohibit this palliative care
O'Connor suggested that she might reach
a different conclusion in Glucksberg the
court declined to recognize a
constitutional right to die the decision
drew a hard line between refusing
life-saving treatment which is
constitutionally protected and accepting
life ending treatment which is not