As Brad Cain reports for the AP, Oregon's Death with Dignity law, which allows the terminally ill to request their doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of a legal drug, will soon go before the Supreme Court.

The Bush administration is challenging Oregon's assisted suicide law, arguing that hastening someone's death is an improper use of medication and thus violates federal drug laws.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case on Oct. 5. Supporters of the assisted suicide law say a favorable high court ruling could lead other states to follow Oregon's lead.

Oregonians approved the law in two separate votes, and many have come to see it as part of their state's identity — something that sets them apart from the rest of the nation.

Still, only a tiny portion of terminally ill Oregonians have used the law to take their lives — 208 people, representing about one in 1,000 deaths.

Gonzalez v. Oregon will provide an immediate glance into the judicial temperment of John G. Roberts (should he be confirmed, of course). If Roberts follows the classic states' rights argument, he should find that Oregon is free to maintain the law (remember, the drugs in question are not federally prohibited, only prescribed in large doses). However, if he is infact a conservative activist, as some worry, his states' rights tendencies would be overridden by his moral apprehensions about physician-assisted suicide. When the transcripts of the hearing become available, we'll try to let you know towards which direction Roberts appears to lean.