Cite as: 521 U. S. 702 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
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.
7 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
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