ABSTRACT
Once appointed to the bench, crafty advocates like Reinhardt have a strong track record for craftily trying to settle political and moral debates by imposing their opinions on the populace. Unable to resist telling us the correct answer to our political-moral problem, Reinhardt and his colleagues have essentially taken the issue out of the legislative process, just as Justice Blackman and the Supreme Court majority did with Roe. But the political process is crucial. The court blurs the line between pulling the plug on a respirator that artificially keeps someone alive and actively intervening on a request to kill a terminal patient. It also casually opens the door to direct lethal injections: "We consider it less important who administers the medication than who determines whether the terminally ill person's life shall end." Just as casually, the court allows the killing to be ordered by a court-appointed or patient-appointed surrogate.
