Law Commons^™

Constitutional Aspects Of Physician-Assisted Suicide After Lee V. Oregon, Simon Canick

Faculty Scholarship

On November 8, 1994, Oregon voters narrowly passed the highly controversial Death with Dignity Act (Measure 16), which marked the first time that physician-assisted suicide was explicitly legalized anywhere in the world. In Lee v. Oregon, a group of physicians, several terminally ill persons, a residential care facility, and individual operators of residential care facilities sought to enjoin enforcement of the new law, claiming various constitutional infirmities. The U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon enjoined enforcement of the law, acknowledging that it raised important constitutional issues including possible violations of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of …