PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - PJ Candilis
AU  - KL Appelbaum
TI  - Physician-assisted suicide and the Supreme Court: the Washington and Vacco verdicts
DP  - 1997 Dec 01
TA  - Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
PG  - 595--606
VI  - 25
IP  - 4
4099  - http://jaapl.org/content/25/4/595.short
4100  - http://jaapl.org/content/25/4/595.full
SO  - J Am Acad Psychiatry Law1997 Dec 01; 25
AB  - In June 1997, the Supreme Court decided that statutes proscribing physicians from providing lethal medication for use by competent, terminally ill patients do not violate the Due Process or Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution. The Court returned the question of physician-assisted suicide to the states, but did not foreclose future review of state laws that may be too restrictive of care at the end of life. The conceptual distinctions between assisted suicide, refusal of life-sustaining treatment, and administration of pain medication to terminally ill patients were endorsed as important guideposts for future analyses.