Montana allows assisted suicide
Last Thursday, the Montana Supreme Court found that there is no law prohibiting patients from seeking physician-assisted suicide, making it the 3rd state to allow the practice (after Oregon and Washington). The Court focused not on finding a right to assisted suicide, but on failing to find a legal prohibition against it in Montana law. Assisted dying, they argued, can be seen as an extension of patient autonomy and personal responsibility for crucial, life and death decisions.
Two judges dissented, however. Here’s Justice Jim Rice:
Until the public policy is changed by the democratic process, it should be recognized and enforced by the courts. In my view, the court’s conclusion is without support, without clear reason, and without moral force.
This is a Scalia-esque argument for judicial restraint on difficult moral questions. But sometimes rhetoric about “judicial activism” acts as a smokescreen for smuggled-in moral assumptions. When speaking of basic “rights” (and liberals are often inclined to think that the right to die is among them), it’s convenient to use the language of established public policy when it’s in your favor and protest “overreaching activism” when the perceived rights are not currently recognized. Meanwhile, actual moral argument regarding the demands and limits of autonomy when it comes to end-of-life decisions is pushed aside.
But perhaps that’s a good thing – Justice Rice would likely suggest that we ought to hash the issues out in public, through the political process, and in this way morality is not swept under the rug for the ease of legalistic maneuvering. The spectre of Roe v. Wade haunts us still!
-Colin
Related posts:
- Libertarianism: for and against assisted suicide
- Faith in the Supreme Court
- Healthcare, Rights, and Human Rights
- How should we pick judges?
- Supreme ideology
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