Federal Judiciary

SCOTUS Rejects ?Right to Live? Case

By Curt Levey

I was disappointed to hear that today the Supreme Court denied the plaintiff?s cert petition in Abigail Alliance v. von Eschenbach, a case in which the DC Circuit ruled en banc that there is no fundamental right to try to save one?s life through access to drugs not yet approved by the FDA. If there are any unenumerated fundamental rights ? and the Supremes say there are ? I would think the right to save your own life is one of them. It would seem to rank up there with the right to breathe air, and far above the right to kill your fetus. Moreover, as I said in a Federalist Society debate,

?It would be particularly startling if the state, which is constitutionally prohibited from regulating abortion procedures when it risks the health of the mother, were free to regulate pharmaceuticals when the regulation ensures the death of the patient.?

For details on the case and the views of others, see the online debate.

read more

Full post as published by ConfirmThem on January 14, 2008 (boomark / email).