THE US Supreme Court has upheld existing bans on doctor assisted suicide but has left the door open to the individual states legalising the practice in future.
The court ruled 9-0 in rejecting constitutional challenges to laws in New York and Washington states that make doctor assisted suicide a crime. The judges said that the constitution does not guarantee Americans a right to commit suicide with the help of a doctor but hinted that the states could allow the practice through their own legislation.
Oregon voted in a 1994 referendum to allow doctors to help terminally ill patients to die by a lethal overdose of medication but implementation has been held up in the courts. A new referendum will be held in November.
The ruling of the Supreme Court has been eagerly awaited as a result of the controversy over the activities of Dr Jack Kevorkian, nicknamed "Dr Death", who has assisted 45 patients to commit suicide. Dr Kevorkian, who has been unsuccessfully prosecuted several times for his actions, said that the court's ruling would make "not one damn bit of difference" to what he does.
The court's decision has been warmly welcomed by the American Medical Association, which has argued that doctorassisted suicide violates the profession's Hippocratic oath.
But the New York Times legal correspondent has described the court's tone as "that of a tentative first step rather than a definitive ruling on the issue". But "the door remained open to constitutional claims for assistance by dying patients in the future".
Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that "in almost every state, indeed in almost every western democracy, it is a crime to assist a suicide". But he also said that the court's ruling "permits this debate to continue as it should in a democratic society".
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in her concurring opinion said: "There is no reason to think the democratic process will not strike the proper balance between the interests of terminally ill, mentally competent individuals who would seek to end their suffering and the state's interest in protecting those who might seek to end life mistakenly or under pressure.
Most of the 50 US states expressly prohibit doctor assisted suicide; in 10 states the ban is implied by acceptance of the common law doctrine that suicide is a form of homicide.
The US Catholic bishops' conference also welcomed the Supreme Court's ruling, saying that "true compassion for the dying is not shown in making them die, but in providing aid, palliative care and the comfort of human concern".
The American Civil Liberties Union said that every American "should have the right to die in a humane and dignified manner".
Ms Faye Girsh, director of the Hemlock Society, the largest group in favour of assisted suicide, said "we know doctors have helped people die" and that was going to continue unregulated, unmonitored".