More on the Abigail Alliance

Radley Balko | August 11, 2007

Just to clarify this post, I didn't mean to imply that there is a right to medication that someone else must provide. Only that you should have the right to transact with a willing vendor to access lifesaving medication. The ruling says no—that the federal government may in effect allow you to die in order to protect you from drugs that may not work (note that this isn't even an issue of safety, only efficacy). If anything at all is still covered by the Ninth Amendment (and alas, it seems that nothing is), I would think it would be the right to allow yourself the chance to save your own life.

Also, I neglected to link to our own Kerry Howley's excellent feature on the topic from our August/September issue.