ABSTRACT
In Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 US 702, the US Supreme Court unanimously rejected a constitutional challenge to a Washington state law that made it a felony for physicians to assist in the suicide of mentally competent, terminally ill patients. Dr. Harold Glucksberg argued that there was a liberty interest found in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment for competent terminally ill patients to have physician assistance to end their life, and that interest was violated by the application of the Washington law. Glucksberg involved a Washington state criminal code that made it a felony for anyone knowingly to aid someone in committing suicide. Justice David H. Souter argued that state legislatures had greater institutional competencies than courts for determining the tricky balance between one's right to autonomy over one's body and the state's interest in preventing potential cases of involuntary euthanasia.
