Opinion of the Court

Compassion in Dying, a nonprofit organization that counsels people considering physician-assisted suicide, sued in the United States District Court, seeking a declaration that Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060(1) (1994) is, on its face, unconstitutional. Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 850 F. Supp. 1454, 1459 (WD Wash. 1994).4

The plaintiffs asserted "the existence of a liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment which extends to a personal choice by a mentally competent, terminally ill adult to commit physician-assisted suicide." Ibid. Relying primarily on Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992), and Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S. 261 (1990), the District Court agreed, 850 F. Supp., at 1459-1462, and concluded that Washington's assisted-suicide ban is unconstitutional because it "places an undue burden on the exercise of [that] constitutionally protected liberty interest." Id., at 1465.5 The District Court also decided that the Washington statute violated the Equal Protection Clause's requirement that "all persons similarly situated... be treated alike."" Id., at 1466 (quoting Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U. S. 432, 439 (1985)).

A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, emphasizing that "[i]n the two hundred and five years of our existence no constitutional right to aid in killing

4 John Doe, Jane Roe, and James Poe, plaintiffs in the District Court, were then in the terminal phases of serious and painful illnesses. They declared that they were mentally competent and desired assistance in ending their lives. Declaration of Jane Roe, id., at 23-25; Declaration of John Doe, id., at 27-28; Declaration of James Poe, id., at 30-31; Compassion in Dying, 850 F. Supp., at 1456-1457.

5 The District Court determined that Casey's "undue burden" standard, 505 U. S., at 874 (joint opinion), not the standard from United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987) (requiring a showing that "no set of circumstances exists under which the [law] would be valid"), governed the plaintiffs' facial challenge to the assisted-suicide ban. 850 F. Supp., at 1462-1464.

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oneself has ever been asserted and upheld by a court of final jurisdiction." Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 49 F. 3d 586, 591 (1995). The Ninth Circuit reheard the case en banc, reversed the panel's decision, and affirmed the District Court. Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 79 F. 3d 790, 798 (1996). Like the District Court, the en banc Court of Appeals emphasized our Casey and Cruzan decisions. 79 F. 3d, at 813-816. The court also discussed what it described as "historical" and "current societal attitudes" toward suicide and assisted suicide, id., at 806-812, and concluded that "the Constitution encompasses a due process liberty interest in controlling the time and manner of one's death-that there is, in short, a constitutionally-recognized 'right to die."" Id., at 816. After "[w]eighing and then balancing" this interest against Washington's various interests, the court held that the State's assisted-suicide ban was unconstitutional "as applied to terminally ill competent adults who wish to hasten their deaths with medication prescribed by their physicians." Id., at 836, 837.6 The court did not reach the District Court's equal protection holding. Id., at 838.7 We granted certiorari, 518 U. S. 1057 (1996), and now

reverse.

6 Although, as JUSTICE STEVENS observes, post, at 739 (opinion concurring in judgments), "[the court's] analysis and eventual holding that the statute was unconstitutional was not limited to a particular set of plaintiffs before it," the court did note that "[d]eclaring a statute unconstitutional as applied to members of a group is atypical but not uncommon." 79 F. 3d, at 798, n. 9, and emphasized that it was "not deciding the facial validity of [the Washington statute]," id., at 797-798, and nn. 8-9. It is therefore the court's holding that Washington's physician-assisted suicide statute is unconstitutional as applied to the "class of terminally ill, mentally competent patients," post, at 750 (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgments), that is before us today.

"The Court of Appeals did note, however, that "the equal protection argument relied on by [the District Court] is not insubstantial," 79 F. 3d, at 838, n. 139, and sharply criticized the opinion in a separate case then pending before the Ninth Circuit, Lee v. Oregon, 891 F. Supp. 1429 (Ore. 1995) (Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, which permits physician-assisted

Opinion of the Court

I

We begin, as we do in all due process cases, by examining our Nation's history, legal traditions, and practices. See, e. g., Casey, supra, at 849-850; Cruzan, supra, at 269–279; Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494, 503 (1977) (plurality opinion) (noting importance of "careful 'respect for the teachings of history'"). In almost every State-indeed, in almost every western democracy-it is a crime to assist a suicide.8 The States' assisted-suicide bans are not innovations. Rather, they are longstanding expressions of the States' commitment to the protection and preservation of all human life. Cruzan, supra, at 280 ("[T]he States-indeed, all civilized nations-demonstrate their commitment to life by treating homicide as a serious crime. Moreover, the major

suicide, violates the Equal Protection Clause because it does not provide adequate safeguards against abuse), vacated, Lee v. Oregon, 107 F. 3d 1382 (CA9 1997) (concluding that plaintiffs lacked Article III standing). Lee, of course, is not before us, any more than it was before the Court of Appeals below, and we offer no opinion as to the validity of the Lee courts' reasoning. In Vacco v. Quill, post, p. 793, however, decided today, we hold that New York's assisted-suicide ban does not violate the Equal Protection Clause.

8 See Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 79 F. 3d 790, 847, and nn. 10-13 (CA9 1996) (Beezer, J., dissenting) ("In total, forty-four states, the District of Columbia and two territories prohibit or condemn assisted suicide") (citing statutes and cases); Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney General), 107 D. L. R. (4th) 342, 404 (Can. 1993) (“[A] blanket prohibition on assisted suicide. . . is the norm among western democracies") (discussing assisted-suicide provisions in Austria, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, and France). Since the Ninth Circuit's decision, Louisiana, Rhode Island, and Iowa have enacted statutory assisted-suicide bans. La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14:32.12 (West Supp. 1997); R. I. Gen. Laws §§ 11-60-1, 11-60-3 (Supp. 1996); Iowa Code Ann. §§ 707A.2, 707A.3 (Supp. 1997). For a detailed history of the States' statutes, see Marzen, O'Dowd, Crone, & Balch, Suicide: A Constitutional Right?, 24 Duquesne L. Rev. 1, 148-242 (1985) (App.) (hereinafter Marzen).

Opinion of the Court

ity of States in this country have laws imposing criminal penalties on one who assists another to commit suicide"); see Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U. S. 361, 373 (1989) (“[T]he primary and most reliable indication of [a national] consensus is ...the pattern of enacted laws"). Indeed, opposition to and condemnation of suicide-and, therefore, of assisting suicide-are consistent and enduring themes of our philosophical, legal, and cultural heritages. See generally Marzen 17-56; New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, When Death is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context 77-82 (May 1994) (hereinafter New York Task Force).

More specifically, for over 700 years, the Anglo-American common-law tradition has punished or otherwise disapproved of both suicide and assisting suicide. Cruzan, 497 U.S., at 294-295 (SCALIA, J., concurring). In the 13th century, Henry de Bracton, one of the first legal-treatise writers, observed that "[j]ust as a man may commit felony by slaying another so may he do so by slaying himself." 2 Bracton on Laws and Customs of England 423 (f. 150) (G. Woodbine ed., S. Thorne transl., 1968). The real and personal property of one who killed himself to avoid conviction and punishment for a crime were forfeit to the King; however, thought Bracton, "if a man slays himself in weariness of life or because he is unwilling to endure further bodily pain . . . [only] his movable goods [were] confiscated." Id., at 423-424 (f. 150). Thus, "[t]he principle that suicide of a sane person, for whatever reason, was a punishable felony was... introduced into

9 The common law is thought to have emerged through the expansion of pre-Norman institutions sometime in the 12th century. J. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History 11 (2d ed. 1979). England adopted the ecclesiastical prohibition on suicide five centuries earlier, in the year 673 at the Council of Hereford, and this prohibition was reaffirmed by King Edgar in 967. See G. Williams, The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law 257 (1957).

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English common law." 10 Centuries later, Sir William Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England not only provided a definitive summary of the common law but was also a primary legal authority for 18th- and 19th-century American lawyers, referred to suicide as "self-murder" and "the pretended heroism, but real cowardice, of the Stoic philosophers, who destroyed themselves to avoid those ills which they had not the fortitude to endure . . . ." 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *189. Blackstone emphasized that "the law has . . . ranked [suicide] among the highest crimes," ibid., although, anticipating later developments, he conceded that the harsh and shameful punishments imposed for suicide "borde[r] a little upon severity." Id., at *190.

For the most part, the early American Colonies adopted the common-law approach. For example, the legislators of the Providence Plantations, which would later become Rhode Island, declared, in 1647, that "[s]elf-murder is by all agreed to be the most unnatural, and it is by this present Assembly declared, to be that, wherein he that doth it, kills himself out

10 Marzen 59. Other late-medieval treatise writers followed and restated Bracton; one observed that "man-slaughter" may be "[o]f [one]self; as in case, when people hang themselves or hurt themselves, or otherwise kill themselves of their own felony" or "[o]f others; as by beating, famine, or other punishment; in like cases, all are man-slayers." A. Horne, The Mirrour of Justices, ch. 1, §9, pp. 41-42 (W. Robinson ed. 1903). By the mid-16th century, the Court at Common Bench could observe that "[suicide] is an Offence against Nature, against God, and against the King.. [T]o destroy one's self is contrary to Nature, and a Thing most horrible." Hales v. Petit, 1 Plowd. Com. 253, 261, 75 Eng. Rep. 387, 400 (1561-1562). In 1644, Sir Edward Coke published his Third Institute, a lodestar for later common lawyers. See T. Plucknett, A Concise History of the Common Law 281-284 (5th ed. 1956). Coke regarded suicide as a category of murder, and agreed with Bracton that the goods and chattels—but not, for Coke, the lands of a sane suicide were forfeit. 3 E. Coke, Institutes *54. William Hawkins, in his 1716 Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown, followed Coke, observing that "our laws have always had . . . an abhorrence of this crime." 1 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, ch. 27, § 4, p. 164 (T. Leach ed. 1795).