The Supreme Court chose to interpret the law rather than take a stand on moral grounds. I don't like the result, but that's what courts are for. It's the legislative branch of government that must deal with this issue which, if not dealt with, takes us down a slippery moral slope.
Justice Scalia, however, tackled the real issue head on and declared that death is not a legitimate outcome for doctors prescribing drugs. Alas, his common sense did not prevail
"Justice Antonin Scalia, in a sharp dissent, asserted that the attorney general did indeed have the authority to issue his 2001 ruling, regardless of the majority's reading of events. "If the term 'legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death," Justice Scalia wrote.
Justice Scalia, citing papers filed on behalf of the federal government, wrote that "virtually every medical authority from Hippocrates to the current American Medical Association confirms that assisting suicide has seldom or never been viewed as a form of 'prevention, cure, or alleviation of disease.' " The entire legitimacy of physician-assisted suicide "ultimately rests, not on 'science' or 'medicine,' but on a naked value judgment," he wrote."
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