How will conservative court rule on right-to-die issue?

It will be interesting to see how the conservative Chief Justice John H. Roberts votes in the first high-profile case to be heard by the Roberts Court -- the federal government's challenge of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act.
At first glance, there would appear to be very little reason to question how Roberts and a majority of the Supreme Court would vote on the law, which allows Oregon doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients.
First, it is a classic states rights case. In a 1994 voter initiative, Oregon residents gave doctors permission to prescribe -- but not administer -- lethal doses of medication to certain terminally ill patients. In a 1997 right-to-die ruling, the Supreme Court refused to acknowledge a constitutional right to end one's own life, but it left the door open for states to experiment with different approaches to end-of-life questions.
As a private attorney at the time, Roberts praised the 1997 decision, saying it was important to protect the rights of citizens to decide through local governments how best to deal with the issue.
Congress twice tried to pre-empt the Oregon law, in 1998 and 1999, but neither effort passed and the Clinton administration concluded that there was no federal interest in challenging the law.
The Oregon law not only raises questions of states rights, it raise a question of individual rights. No patient is required to use the law to end his or her own life. No doctor is required to participate. The law carefully provides for lethal prescriptions only for terminally ill patients who are suffering pain that cannot be alleviated.
It has been scrupulously administered, and in more than a decade only 208 patients have used the law to end their own lives.
Abuse of federal power
While the court previously ruled that the Constitution does not provide an absolute right to die, it is an abuse of federal power to twist a law that was written to police illicit drug traffic into a law that prohibits a patient of sound mind from working with a conscientious doctor on a course of treatment that both feel is appropriate.
It was then-Attorney General John Ashcroft who decided in 2001 to challenge the Oregon law, saying it conflicted with federal drug statutes. The Justice Department threatened participating doctors with prosecution or the loss of their medical licenses.
Oregon challenged the justice department and two lower courts concluded that the administration over-reached, bringing the case to the Supreme Court.
Almost inexplicably, however, Roberts seemed strongly inclined during oral arguments Wednesday to side with the federal government over Oregon, its voters, its terminally ill patients and its medical professionals.
He seemed persuaded by the suggestion that to allow Oregon to continue with a very structured program aimed at a very small group of terminally ill patients might some day lead to another state legislature allowing doctors to prescribe feel-good drugs to patients regardless of their medical need. He seemed unimpressed with the Oregon attorney general's argument that 200 years of precedent leans toward allowing states to regulate medical practices.
In another discussion of the Supreme Court just the other day, we noted that such catch phrases as "strict constructionist" and "legislating from the bench" are just that, phrases. Conservatives are just as prone to bend the law to their own ends as are liberals, depending on the stakes at hand.
The political stakes in this case could be described as high, given that the conservative base of the Republican Party is heavily invested in the various right-to-life, right-to-die questions.
Roberts has the opportunity to prove or disprove our thesis -- and sooner than we would have expected. He can remain true to the libertarian sentiments he voiced in 1997 on this issue, or he can shift to the philosophy espoused by the political party that put him on the court.