In 1998 note, Supreme Court nominee Kagan called assisted suicide ban a “terrible idea”

Kagan called assisted suicide ban “terrible idea”

WASHINGTON — As a domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan wrote that encouraging a new federal law banning assisted suicide would be “a fairly terrible idea.”

Kagan’s opinion was expressed in a 1998 handwritten note during an internal administration debate over whether doctors in Oregon should be allowed to prescribe fatal drugs to help terminally ill patients commit suicide.

The Clinton Justice Department was about to weigh in with an opinion saying that Oregon doctors who helped patients kill themselves were not violating laws controlling the drugs they were prescribing.