Seven years later the Court faced right to die issues again in two cases involving challenges to laws criminalizing physician-assisted suicide.  The lower courts in each case, one involving a Washington state law and another a New York statute, found the laws unconstiutional--at least as applied (the 9th Circuit decision rested on due process right-to-privacy grounds, the 2nd Circuit decision on equal protection grounds.) The Supreme Court reversed in both cases, finding the laws to be constiutional.  Although the Court interpreted Cruzan as recognizing a right to refuse medical treatment, the Court found no constitutional basis for a right to assisted suicide.  Three justices in concurring opinions (O'Connor, Breyer, Stevens) indicated that they might be willing to uphold "more particularized challenges" to such laws, such as--for example--an as applied challenge to a state's refusal to assist a terminally ill patient in severe pain from ending his or her life.

In 2006, in Gonzales v Oregon, the Court decided another right-to-die case, although this one primarily on administrative law grounds, not constitutional grounds.  Voting 6 to 3, the Court ruled that Attorney General Ashcroft exceeded his powers under the Controlled Substances Act when he threatened prosecution against Oregon doctors prescribing lethal drugs under that state's Death with Dignity Act.  Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy concluded that regulation of medical practices was primarily a job for the states and that Ashcroft failed to recognize "the background principles of our federal system."

Bill Colby, who represented the Cruzan family in their efforts to discontinue Nancy's feeding, has written an excellent book, Long Goodbye:The Deaths of Nancy Cruzan, about this sad case--and its tragic aftermath.