Washington v. Glucksberg
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| Washington v. Glucksberg | ||||||||||||
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| Argued January 8, 1997 Decided June 26, 1997 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||||
| The Court held that a right to assistance in committing suicide was not protected by the Due Process Clause. | ||||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: William Rehnquist Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||
| Majority by: Rehnquist Joined by: O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas Concurrence by: O'Connor Joined by: Ginsburg, Breyer Concurrence by: Stevens Concurrence by: Souter Concurrence by: Ginsburg Concurrence by: Breyer |
Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a right to assistance in committing suicide was not protected by the Due Process Clause.
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[edit] Facts
Dr. Harold Glucksberg, a physician—along with four other physicians, three terminally ill patients, and the non-profit organization, Compassion in Dying, counseling those considering assisted-suicide—challenged Washington state's ban against assisted suicide in the Natural Death Act of 1979. They claimed that assisted suicide was a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The District Court ruled in favor of Glucksberg and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's decision. The case was argued before the United States Supreme Court on January 8, 1997. The question presented was whether the protection of the Due Process Clause included a right to commit suicide, and therefore commit suicide with another's assistance.
[edit] Decision
The decision reversed a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that a ban on physician assisted suicide embodied in Washington's Natural Death Act of 1979 was a violation of the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause. The Court asserted that because assisted-suicide is not a fundamental liberty interest, it was therefore not protected under the 14th Amendment. As previously decided in Moore v. East Cleveland, liberty interests not "deeply rooted in the nation's history" do not qualify as being a protected liberty interest. Assisted-suicide had been frowned upon for centuries and majority of the States had similar bans on assisted suicide. Rehnquist found the English common-law penalties associated with assisted suicide particularly significant. For example, at early common law, the state confiscated the property of a person who committed suicide. Like Blackmun in Roe v. Wade, Rehnquist used English common law to exemplify American "tradition" and therefore determine what rights were "deeply rooted in the nation's history." Indeed, Rehnquist frequently cited Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in the opinion. In addition, the Court felt that the ban was rational in that it furthered various compelling state interests, such as the preservation of human life and protecting the mentally ill and disabled from medical malpractice and coercion. It also prevented those from ending their lives simply due to financial or psychological complications. The Court also felt that if the Court declared physician-assisted suicide a constitutionally protected right, they would start down the path to voluntary and perhaps involuntary euthanasia.
In Washington vs. Glucksberg, the Supreme Court held that Washington’s ban on assisted suicide does not violate the Due Process Clause. This decision demonstrated that the Court was hesitant to extend the established right of privacy to include a right to assisted suicide.
Justice Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion for the court. Justice O'Connor, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Stevens all wrote concurring opinions.
[edit] See also
- List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 521
- Gonzales v. Oregon
- Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health
[edit] References
- ^ 521 U.S. 702 Full text of the opinion courtesy of the Legal Information Institute (LII).
