Scalia Stresses View On Right-To-Die Issue Legal Experts Suggest Discussion By Justice Unwise With Case Pending

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says there is no constitutional “right to die” - a question the high court soon will address in deciding whether states may ban doctor-assisted suicide.

Even though Scalia’s views on the right-to-die issue have been known since 1990, experts on legal ethics suggested Monday it was unwise for him to discuss the subject publicly while an assisted-suicide case is pending at the court.

It is “absolutely plain that there is no right to die,” Scalia said Oct. 18 at Catholic University’s School of Philosophy. “There were laws against suicide” when the Constitution was drafted, he noted.

The high court agreed earlier this month to decide whether doctors can be barred from prescribing life-ending drugs for terminally ill patients who no longer want to live.

Most states forbid doctor-assisted suicide, but lower courts have struck down such bans imposed by New York and Washington state.

Scalia, one of the court’s most conservative justices, did not mention the assisted suicide issue, according to a transcript of his speech.

Legal ethics expert Geoffrey Hazard, a University of Pennsylvania law professor, said he thought the justice’s statement was “very poor form.”

For those with a case coming before the court, “I think they would feel that his mind is closed to them and that is an unfortunate feeling to have when you’re going before the court,” Hazard said.

Scalia told the Catholic University audience that courts should not recognize constitutional rights - such as the right to abortion - that did not exist when the Constitution was drafted.

“All sorts of rights that clearly did not exist at the time of the Constitution have been held by the court and are thought by justices of the court to exist today,” he said.

The Supreme Court first recognized a right to refuse lifesaving treatment in 1990, but it also said states can require clear proof of a patient’s intent before allowing the withdrawal of such treatment.

In a concurring opinion in that case, Scalia wrote that he wished the court had decided to announce “that the federal courts have no business in this field; that American law has always accorded the state the power to prevent, by force if necessary, suicide.”