But it’s not an appeal to authority if they are an authority. That’s only a fallacy when you ask a “smart” person for an opinion about some general issue. If you ask for advice in their field of expertise, it is not a fallacy.
As for begging the question, can you be more specific? He’s not definining medicine as medicine. Quite the contrary-- he’s going to the dictionary to get the actual definition.
Key part sentence in the opinion:
No. Although the news has been claiming that its a states’ rights case, it’s actually the opposite, if anything:
It reaffirms, and perhaps even broadens Raich. Instead, the Court looks to the structure and language of the act, and determines:
I don’t see why. Consider the literal meaning of disease i.e. dis-ease. If medicine’s mandate is to relieve disease, then in the specific circumstances of those eligible for the Oregon law, this mandate is fulfilled by assisted suicide. Generally, death is not considered a valid medical outcome because there are alternatives which preserve life while removing or easing the disease, and that option is almost universally preferred by the patients. In the Oregon law’s case, candidates need to have less than six months to live, per expert opinion. Suicide, to me, seems a valid medical course of treatment in such cases.
But the CSA gives the AG the authority to make that decision, not you.
I was just countering the statement of yours I quoted.
Thats the point, the AMA is not an authority in this case. Simply put, what constitutes a valid goal of medicine is a social decision not one that comes from an authority. If enough people consider assisted suicide an acceptable treatment of a disease than assisted suicide is a valid form of treatment no matter what the AMA says.
I might be misreading the part I quoted before but I think he might be begging the question at that point.
The physicians didn’t write Oregon law.
No. SCOTUS does not have to find that a right to die exists in the Consitution. It would have to find something in the Constitution which would prevent the state of Oregon from allowing it.
I never said they did. I meant that both sides of the ruling were talking about whether the controling authority (AG or the AMA) were in a position to determine what constitutes “medicine” or “health”.
I don’t understand. Even *Roe *wasn’t determined that way. That was based on the finding of a right to privacy in the constitution.
Roe determined that laws prohibiting abortion violated a preexisting right to privacy. Roe did not find that right itself, it relied on a previous ruling (Griswold V. Connecticut) which claimed that the right to privacy existed in the “penumbras and emanations” of several Constitutional Amendments.
My point is that SCOTUS does not have to say that a right exists in order for an individual state to make something legal. It only has to measure any law passed by the state to see if it violates anything in the constitution. That’s more likely to happen if something is made illegal but I suppose it’s possible to challenge a right granted by the state in some circumstances. With regard to Right to Die, I don’t think the Constitution is definitive either way. That means each state can make it legal or illegal according to its own will and neither choice is unconstitutional.
Of course, Congress could make it illegal (or legal) on a federal level and that would settle it, but as it stands, I’m pretty sure the states just have their own discretion.
By the way, in illustration of my points above, individual states could have legalized abortion before Roe if they wanted to. The question was not whether states were allowed to make abortion legal but whether they were able to make it a crime.
Huh? The reason the case came before the SCOTUS is precisely becuase there was a controlling federal law.
There was no specific federal law prohibiting assisted suicide, the challenge was about whether the SCA could be invoked as a means to prevent it. The Court said no, so that means there is no controlling federal authority at all preventing a state from allowing assisted suicide.
Csa
Doesn’t matter that *Roe *didn’t find that right. It was found to be there. *Griswald *found the right to privacy which overturned the CT anti-birth control laws. The same would happen if states had anti-assisted suicide laws (which most do) and someone sued claiming that a right to die exisits in the constitution.
That wasn’t the issue in front of the court. The issue was whether the physicians issuing drugs were violating the CSA. The Feds contended that they were but Oregon disagreed. That was the issue not whether or not a State could pass an assisted suicide law.
I thiught we were talking about a state that made it legal. Maybe we’re talking past each other here but all I was saying was that SCOTUS does not have to find a Constitutional right to die in order for a state to make it legal. It might be necessary to find that right in order to overturn a prohibition, but I’m not claiming that a prohibition is unconstitutional or that such a right exists. I’m saying it doesn’t have to exist in order for Oregon to legalize it.
I don’t see anything different between what I said and what you said. Yes, the issue was whether CSA could be invoked as a means for the feds to prevent doctors from administering certian drugs. I agree. I was only saying that hypothetically, the only way the feds could now prevent assisted suicide in Oregon would be to pass a federal law.
OK. I’m not saying that finding the right to die would be the only way either. I’m just saying it could be one way, and that someone will probably try to challenge anti-assisted suicide laws that way in the future. That’s what I mean by “the real issue”.
This ruling is being touted in the news as SCOTUS saying the feds can’t stop assited suicide laws. But the feds most certainly could pass a law specifically forbiding the states from allowing assisted suicide. Hence my conjecture that eventually SCOTUS might have to decide the right to die question.
Those cases have already been decided. See, Washington v. Glucksberg (state may prohibit physician assisted suicide because there is no fundamental liberty interest at stake); Cruzan v. Director (patients have a liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment, even if refusal will result in deat).
This case is mainly an administrative law case. The primary issues were:
Is the AG’s opinion entitled to deference (so that even if the Court disagrees with his interpretation, it must accept it)?
If so, what standard applies to the deference?
If not, what is the correct interpretation of the statute (with some subquestions here)?
Damn! I missed all the fireworks. 
That was my impression. There is no sweeping, constitutional issue at stake. You wouldn’t know that from reading the headlines, though.
It’s always nice to see on of our resident lawyers checking in to these threads. Those SCOTUS rulings are a bitch to read!