Opinion ID: 76651
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The District Court's Focus on Contemporary Practice

Text: 40 In reaching its holding, the district court relied heavily on contemporary practice, emphasizing the contemporary trend of legislative and societal liberalization of attitudes toward consensual, adult sexual activity. Id. at 1294; see generally id. at 1289-94; see also id. at 1296 (holding that there is a `history, legal tradition, and practice' in this country of deliberate state non-interference with private sexual relationships between married couples, and a contemporary practice of the same between unmarried persons) (emphasis added) (citation omitted). 41 Our first concern is the legal significance, or the lack thereof, of much of the district court's source material for this contemporary practice. In addition to invoking a cluster of Supreme Court precedents touching on matters of procreation and familial integrity, the district court looked to social science data respecting premarital intercourse, marriage and divorce rates, and the like. Id. at 1290. It further noted the revolutionary impact of the Kinsey studies, the imagery and implements of adult sexual relationships [that] pervade modern American society, the availability of pornography of the grossest sort, and the widespread marketing of Viagra (including by such notable personalities as former United States Senate Majority Leader and 1996 Republican presidential candidate Robert J. Dole and popular NASCAR driver Mark Martin). Id. at 1294. While such evidence undoubtedly confirms the district court's discovery of the specter of a twentieth century sexual liberalism, id. at 1291, its relevance under Glucksberg is scant. 42 The district court justified this emphasis by noting that the Glucksberg Court had relied on contemporary practice in reaching its determination that assisted suicide is not a constitutional right. See, e.g., id. at 1275 ( Glucksberg considered current statutes, legislative debates, voter initiatives, and the positions of contemporary task forces and commissions on the issue of assisted suicide). This gloss, however, considerably overstates that Court's reliance on contemporary attitudes. What the Glucksberg Court did was to note that democratic action in many states had recently reaffirmed assisted-suicide bans, thus buttressing the Court's conclusion that assisted suicide is not deeply rooted in the history and traditions of the nation. 521 U.S. at 716-19, 117 S.Ct. at 2265-67. But the existence of this contemporary practice was never essential to that conclusion. That is, the Court never suggested that a lack of contemporary reinforcement of the prohibition on assisted suicide would have led it to a contrary conclusion. 43 The district court's interpretation also overlooks the context of Glucksberg 's contemporary practice analysis. The Court began its examination of history and tradition by inquiring whether this asserted right has any place in our Nation's traditions. Id. at 723, 117 S.Ct. at 2269 (emphasis added). Having found that it did not, the Court had no need to proceed to the further question of whether that right was deeply rooted in those traditions (nor whether it was implicit in the concept of ordered liberty). Part of the reason the Court was able to dismiss the asserted right so summarily was because it found that the prohibition on assisted suicide continues explicitly to the present. Id. In short, the democratic action cited by Glucksberg was merely one factor among many disproving the claim that assisted suicide is a deeply rooted right. 14 44