NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released,
as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion
is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court
but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience
of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber
Co., 200
U.S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
WASHINGTON et al.
v. GLUCKSBERG et al.
certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit
No. 96-110.
Argued January 8, 1997 -- Decided
June 26, 1997
It has always been a crime to assist a suicide in the State of Washington.
The State's present law makes "[p]romoting a suicide attempt" a felony,
and provides: "A person is guilty of [that crime] when he knowingly causes
or aids another person to attempt suicide." Respondents, four Washington
physicians who occasionally treat terminally ill, suffering patients, declare
that they would assist these patients in ending their lives if not for
the State's assisted suicide ban. They, along with three gravely ill plaintiffs
who have since died and a nonprofit organization that counsels people considering
physician assisted suicide, filed this suit against petitioners, the State
and its Attorney General, seeking a declaration that the ban is, on its
face, unconstitutional. They assert a liberty interest protected by the
Fourteenth
Amendment's Due Process Clause which extends to a personal choice by
a mentally competent, terminally ill adult to commit physician assisted
suicide. Relying primarily on Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa.
v. Casey, 505
U.S. 833, and Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health,
497
U.S. 261, the Federal District Court agreed, concluding that Washington's
assisted suicide ban is unconstitutional because it places an undue burden
on the exercise of that constitutionally protected liberty interest. The
en banc Ninth Circuit affirmed.
Held: Washington's prohibition
against "caus[ing]" or "aid[ing]" a suicide does not violate the Due Process
Clause. Pp. 5-32.
(a) An examination of our Nation's
history, legal traditions, and practices demonstrates that Anglo American
common law has punished or otherwise disapproved of assisting suicide for
over 700 years; that rendering such assistance is still a crime in almost
every State; that such prohibitions have never contained exceptions for
those who were near death; that the prohibitions have in recent years been
reexamined and, for the most part, reaffirmed in a number of States; and
that the President recently signed the Federal Assisted Suicide Funding
Restriction Act of 1997, which prohibits the use of federal funds in support
of physician assisted suicide. Pp. 5-15.
(b) In light of that history, this Court's decisions lead to the conclusion
that respondents' asserted "right" to assistance in committing suicide
is not a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause.
The Court's established method of substantive due process analysis has
two primary features: First, the Court has regularly observed that the
Clause specially protects those fundamental rights and liberties which
are, objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition.
E.g., Moore v. East Cleveland, 431
U.S. 494, 503 (plurality opinion). Second, the Court has required a
"careful description" of the asserted fundamental liberty interest. E.g.,
Reno v. Flores, 507
U.S. 292, 302. The Ninth Circuit's and respondents' various descriptions
of the interest here at stake--e.g., a right to "determin[e] the
time and manner of one's death," the "right to die," a "liberty to choose
how to die," a right to "control of one's final days," "the right to choose
a humane, dignified death," and "the liberty to shape death"--run counter
to that second requirement. Since the Washington statute prohibits "aid[ing]
another person to attempt suicide," the question before the Court is more
properly characterized as whether the "liberty" specially protected by
the Clause includes a right to commit suicide which itself includes a right
to assistance in doing so. This asserted right has no place in our Nation's
traditions, given the country's consistent, almost universal, and continuing
rejection of the right, even for terminally ill, mentally competent adults.
To hold for respondents, the Court would have to reverse centuries of legal
doctrine and practice, and strike down the considered policy choice of
almost every State. Respondents' contention that the asserted interest
is consistent with this Court's substantive due process cases, if
not with this Nation's history and practice, is unpersuasive. The constitutionally
protected right to refuse lifesaving hydration and nutrition that was discussed
in Cruzan, supra, at 279, was not simply deduced from abstract concepts
of personal autonomy, but was instead grounded in the Nation's history
and traditions, given the common law rule that forced medication was a
battery, and the long legal tradition protecting the decision to refuse
unwanted medical treatment. And although Casey recognized that many
of the rights and liberties protected by the Due Process Clause sound in
personal autonomy, 505 U. S., at 852, it does not follow that any and all
important, intimate, and personal decisions are so protected, see San
Antonio School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411
U.S. 1, 33-34. Casey did not suggest otherwise. Pp. 15-24.
(c) The constitutional requirement that Washington's assisted
suicide ban be rationally related to legitimate government interests, see
e.g., Heller v. Doe, 509
U.S. 312, 319-320, is unquestionably met here. These interests include
prohibiting intentional killing and preserving human life; preventing the
serious public health problem of suicide, especially among the young, the
elderly, and those suffering from untreated pain or from depression or
other mental disorders; protecting the medical profession's integrity and
ethics and maintaining physicians' role as their patients' healers; protecting
the poor, the elderly, disabled persons, the terminally ill, and persons
in other vulnerable groups from indifference, prejudice, and psychological
and financial pressure to end their lives; and avoiding a possible slide
towards voluntary and perhaps even involuntary euthanasia. The relative
strengths of these various interests need not be weighed exactingly, since
they are unquestionably important and legitimate, and the law at issue
is at least reasonably related to their promotion and protection. Pp. 24-31.
79 F. 3d 790,
reversed and remanded.
Rehnquist, C. J., delivered
the opinion of the Court, in which O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas,
JJ., joined. O'Connor, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Ginsburg
and Breyer, JJ., joined in part. Stevens, J., Souter, J., Ginsburg, J.,
and Breyer, J., filed opinions concurring in the judgment.
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