Health Care and the Right to Personal Autonomy

I just heard that the Supreme Court has ruled that the government may prosecute people who, on the advice of their doctor, smoke pot to relieve their cancer symptoms (or, rather, to relieve the harmful side effects of chemotherapy).  It fascinates me, one, that our strain of Puritanism is so strong that we would rather people suffer needlessly while they die than legalize the smoking of a plant.  Second, there are some medical decisions - like abortion - which are inside the legally-cognizable zone of personal autonomy, and others, like pain relief, which are not.  It sort of makes sense.  There are alternatives to marijuana - including, ironically, a pharmaceutical cannabinoid chemically identical to pot - but there is no alternative to abortion for ending a pregnancy.  So the courts can say that the legislature may regulate one treatment so long as there are plausible alternatives available to achieve the same result.  It still rubs me the wrong way that laws can so minutely interfere with a doctor's care for a patient.   

Comments

[Gib]

Having not read the decision, I don't have a position on it one way or the other, but I did find it curious that the dissent all came from the conservative side of the Court - Rehnquist, Thomas, and O'Conner - presumably on federalist grounds. Right-leaning bloggers seem fairly united behind the idea that when Scalia and Thomas disagree - Thomas is the one who's right.

[That Girl]

Stupidity rubs me the wrong way. I wouldn't mind if we were winning this drug "war" but Im pretty sure we're getting our butts handed to us time and again. Our personal freedoms get more restricted every day - right now it's the people it's easy to pick on - smokers, pot smokers, fat people, minors who want abortions.

[Anonymous American]

There are alternatives to marijuana such as Marinol, however it is the aggregate effect of the many cannibinoids NOT just TetraHydroCannibinol-delta-9 that relieves the symptoms and in some cases even slows brain tumor growth.

[Christina]

Actually, there are other means besides abortion for ending a pregnancy: induced labor, natural vaginal delivery, and c-section spring to mind. Abortion's just a way of ensuring that you get a dead fetus instead of a live one.

[Mithras]

Abortion's just a way of ensuring that you get a dead fetus instead of a live one.

The dead ones sure are yummy. The live ones squirm around too much.