Peakah has a post talking about some conflicting views on assisted Suicide in light of the Supreme Court decision ruling that the Attorney General can't use Drug Control regulations. It’s a thoughtful piece worth a thoughtful response.

Regarding the Ruling itself, Bryan Fischer at Idaho Values Alliance has a pretty good analysis of it, particularly in light of Judge Thomas' dissent:

In a separate dissent, Clarence Thomas pointed out that yesterday’s decision is at odds with a recent Supreme Court ruling regarding medical marijuana use. In the Oregon case, the Court ruled that state law trumps federal law – with regard to assisted suicide. But in the marijuana case, it ruled that state law does not trump federal law.

In other words, a majority of the Justices seemed to have had a preferred outcome in mind in both cases and then found a way to use twisted legal reasoning to forbid in one case what they permit in another. They clearly seem to see themselves as a super-legislature, preoccupied with what the law should be rather than what it is, and willing to impose their own vision of society in plain defiance of laws passed by elected representatives. This is judicial activism on vivid display.

Now, the court was just ruling on what Congress intended, not on what the Constitution said. Based on that, I think the Court got it wrong. Now, if you're talking the Constitution, there's 10th Amendment Issues with this, but there's 10th Amendment Issues with the entire war on drugs.

In explaining his feelings, Peakah writes:

But with much discussion between my wife and I over the last year about whether or not to be kept alive when terminally ill and in severe pain, I no longer think so. We both decided that we would not like extraordinary support to stay living in that condition. And while we both expressed desires to just have bullets put in our head instead, I don't think that's legal. It is also probably a function of extreme selfishness as well, as is suicide itself- the ultimate in selfishness...

However, with the advancements in medical technology and medicine's ability to keep someone alive long after they're essentially dead, I cannot think of a more disturbing prospect than to be kept alive when there is no hope of experiencing life as I know it now.

His feelings are understandable. I'd rather be crucified, boiled in oil, and then behead rather than go through that. I think we have to make a distinction between Assisted Suicide and letting go. Letting go of someone or of your own life for that matter is just saying, "Let God (or nature) take its course." When you're living off machines that enable you to breathe or keep your heart beating, I don't think there's anything wrong with letting someone go.

What we're talking about in physician assisted suicide is actively working to destroy life that has become hard, difficult, or painful. While Peakah doesn't see the problem with allowing Assisted Suicide for the Terminally Ill, I do. It puts doctors in the position of a killers instead of healers. It destroys that idea, that most sacred charge of the physican, "First, do no harm."

As a matter of principle, it further ensconces a Culture of Death, where somehow we can decide what innocent life can be destroyed. When you think about our national first principles in the Declaration of Independence, the word inalienable is a synonym for unforfeitable. That means we can't rightly decide to actively kill ourselves or encourage others to do so.

Assisted Suicide creates a culture and a group of people who regularl kill living already born adults. As Baseball Crank points out with physician's "God complex" won't only make things worse. It is not a logical fallacy to say that physician assisted suicide will lead to Euthanasia and further enthrone the Culture of death. Consider this report that outlines Euthanasia in the Netherlands:

The courts quickly established a set of guidelines for when it was permissible for physicians to assist a patient in committing suicide, such as requiring certain consultations, insisting that the patient must be suffering from a terminal illness, and that the patient must request it.

In 1984, the Royal Society of Medicine issued "rules of careful conduct" for euthanasia. These called for the doctor to inform the patient of his condition, consult his nearest relatives (unless he objects), consult at least one other physician, keep written records, and, in the case of a child, obtain the consent of the parents or legal guardians.

In 1985 a court dropped the "terminal illness" requirement in a case involving a young girl with multiple sclerosis. While her disease was incurable, there was no reason why she could not have lived indefinately. (In a more recent case a woman who was perfectly healthy but suffering from severe depression was euthanized at her request.)
By the late 80's it had become routine to "euthanize" babies born with handicaps, like Down's syndrome and spina bifida.

Three nurses in Amsterdam killed several comatose patients without any consent. They were convicted, not of homicide, but of failing to consult a physician.

In 1990, physicians in the Netherlands were involved in 11,800 deaths, or 9% of all deaths in the country. Of these, half were labeled "active involuntary euthanasia", that is, the patient was killed without his consent.1

The Netherlands has been down this road and now 1 in 11 deaths or physician induced. Do we really want to go there?