Citation. Wash. v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 117 S. Ct. 2258, 117 S. Ct. 2302, 138 L. Ed. 2d 772, 65 U.S.L.W. 4669, 97 Cal. Daily Op. Service 5008, 97 Daily Journal DAR 8150, 11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 190 (U.S. June 26, 1997)
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Brief Fact Summary.
The statute on assisted suicide was challenged as unconstitutional in Washington.
Synopsis of Rule of Law.
The right to assisted suicide is not a fundamental right protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, therefore, any legislation restricting that right will be upheld where the state has an important interest and the statute is reasonably related to its promotion.
Facts.
Glucksberg (Plaintiff) sued the state of Washington (Defendant), claiming that its prohibition against causing or aiding a suicide was an offense to the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Plaintiff asserted the existence of a liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment that extends to a personal choice by a mentally competent, terminally ill adult to commit physician-assisted suicide. The district court agreed, and concluded that the statute was unconstitutional as it placed an undue burden on the exercise of that constitutionally protected interest. A panel of the court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. The Ninth Circuit heard the case en banc again, reversed the panel’s decision, and affirmed the district court. The court decided that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to competent adults who are terminally ill and wish to bring upon death sooner by using medication prescribed by their doctor. Certiorari was granted by the United States Supreme Court.
Issue.
Is the right to assisted suicide not a fundamental right protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore, any legislation restricting that right will be upheld where the state has an important interest and the statute is reasonably related to its promotion?
Held.
(Rehnquist, C.J.) Yes. The right to assisted suicide is not a fundamental right protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, therefore, any legislation restricting that right will be upheld where the state has an important interest and the statute is reasonably related to its promotion. Although many of the rights and liberties of personal autonomy are protected by the Due Process Clause, a far-reaching conclusion that any and all important, intimate, and personal decisions are to be protected is unwarranted. History shows that in the law’s treatment of assisted suicides in this country, nearly all efforts to permit it have been and continue to be rejected. The asserted “right” to assistance in committing suicide is not a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. Since Washington’s assisted suicide statute implicates a number of state interests, it is rationally related to legitimate government interests. The Washington statute does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, either on its face or as applied to competent adults who are terminally ill and wish to bring upon their death sooner by using medicating prescribed by their physicians. Reversed and remanded.
Concurrence.
(O’Connor, J.) There is no generalized right to commit suicide. When a patient is suffering from a terminal illness and is experiencing great pain, there are no legal barriers to getting medication from qualified doctors to alleviate that suffering, even to the point of causing unconsciousness and hastening death.
(Stevens, J.) There is plenty of support as evidenced by history and tradition for refusing to recognize an open-ended constitutional right to commit suicide. The state has a compelling interest in preventing individuals from committing suicide because of depression, or coercion by third parties. Clearly the so-called unqualified interest in the preservation of human life is not itself enough to outweigh the interest in liberty that may justify the only possible way to preserve the dignity of a dying patient and ease her intolerable suffering.
(Souter, J.) The importance of the individual interest here cannot be denied, as within that class of certain interests demanding careful scrutiny of the state’s contrary claim. Whether that interest may at some point be seen as fundamental to the degree entitled to prevail is not, however, a conclusion that I need draw here, for I am satisfied that the state’s interests described her are sufficiently serious to defeat the present claim that its law is arbitrary or without purpose. The state claims an interest in protecting patients from mistakenly and involuntarily deciding to end their lives, and in guarding against both voluntary and involuntary euthanasia.
(Breyer, J.) I do not believe that this Court needs to decide whether or not a right to die with dignity is fundamental. The laws of New York and of Washington do not prohibit physicians from providing their patients with drugs that will control pain sufficiently, despite the risk that those drugs themselves will kill.
Discussion.
The Supreme Court decided in Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U.S. 261 (1990), that a competent person’s right to reject lifesaving hydration and nutrition is protected under the Constitution; however, no general “right to die” exists. Recently the Netherlands permitted the practice of euthanasia, but there are no reliable statistics yet available to evaluate the results. The Court noted that the right to physician-assisted suicide would lead to a much broader license that could be extremely difficult to police and contain.
