There are valid arguments on both sides of the federal-vs.-state power issues in today's Supreme Court ruling permitting federally controlled drugs to be used for assisted suicide in Oregon. However, disability rights activists point out the danger in the assisted suicide issue underlying this ruling.
Life with a disability is so devalued, society is so bigoted against the idea that life with a severe disability can have quality, that in such a climate the "right to die" becomes a "duty to die." Activists fear that people who become disabled will choose suicide over living with disability. They fear that people whose disabilities make them burdens on family members will be pressured -- subtly or not so subtly -- to end their lives.
If there is a glimmer of hope in this situation, it is that today's ruling did not impose a Roe v. Wade -like 'right' to assisted suicide. Thus those who value the dignity of every human life are fully empowered to oppose assisted suicide through the legislative process at state and federal levels.
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