WASHINGTON (January 17, 2006) – An official of the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops commented today on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision
regarding use of federally controlled drugs for assisted suicide.
Richard M. Doerflinger, Deputy Director of the USCCB Secretariat for
Pro-Life Activities, explained that the Court has ruled only that
“Congress has not delegated to the U.S. attorney general” the authority to
prevent such misuse of federally controlled drugs. “This by no means
settles the legal or moral issues regarding assisted suicide,” he said,
“but only changes the forum in which these must be addressed.”
The text of his statement follows.
“Today the Supreme Court ruled that Congress has not delegated to the U.S.
attorney general the authority to prevent federally controlled drugs from
being used for physician-assisted suicide. This by no means settles the
legal or moral issues regarding assisted suicide, but only changes the
forum in which these must be addressed.
“In 1997 the Supreme Court unanimously upheld state laws against
physician-assisted suicide as constitutionally valid. It has not yet
addressed the question whether Oregon’s law, allowing physician-assisted
suicide for certain vulnerable persons, violates constitutional guarantees
such as equal protection under law; one federal court answered that
question in the affirmative, but its ruling was overturned on procedural
grounds by an appellate court.
“As the Catholic bishops’ conference of the United States said in 1991:
‘To destroy the boundary between healing and killing would mark a radical
departure from longstanding legal and medical traditions of our country,
posing a threat of unforeseeable magnitude to vulnerable members of our
society.’ In no sense can assisting a suicide be called a ‘legitimate
medical purpose’ for any drug. Congress now has an obligation to reaffirm
that fact.”