WASHINGTON V. GLUCKSBERG

WASHINGTON V. GLUCKSBERG. This case (521 U.S. 702 [1997]) addressed the question of whether or not Washington State could constitutionally prohibit doctors and others from assisting people in committing suicide. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the state's ban violated the due process rights of the plaintiffs, who were in the terminal phases of painful illnesses and who desired the aid of their doctors in ending their ordeals. The Supreme Court unanimously over-turned the Ninth Circuit.

Writing for the Court, Chief Justice William Rehnquist declared an examination of the "nation's history, legal traditions, and practices" revealed that an individual does not have a fundamental constitutional right to terminate his or her life. Because individuals did not have a fundamental right to commit suicide, the state could legitimately prohibit people from aiding another's suicide. The Court rejected analogies to the constitutional right to refuse unwanted medical treatment, recognized in the 1990 case of Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, and the right to obtain medical intervention to cause an abortion, recognized in 1973 in Roe v. Wade and preserved in the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Though all nine justices agreed that the Ninth Circuit should be overturned, four justices (John P. Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer) declined to join the chief justice's opinion for the Court. Each wrote separately to declare individual rationales and to clarify that the Court's opinion did not bar a future reconsideration of the issue.

WASHINGTON V. GLUCKSBERG

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