US Supreme Court upholds assisted suicide law

The US Supreme Court upheld Oregon’s one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law today, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.

Justices, on a 6-3 vote, said that federal authority to regulate doctors does not override the 1997 Oregon law used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people. New Chief Justice John Roberts backed the Bush administration, dissenting for the first time.