MARGARET WARNER: In a unanimous decision the court upheld laws in New York and Washington State that make it a crime for doctors to prescribe lethal drugs for terminally ill patients who no longer want to live. For more details on today’s ruling we’re joined by NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the "American Lawyer" and "Legal Times." Stuart, first brief background. What exactly did these laws say and who challenged them? STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: These were laws in Washington State and New York State. Both of them are general laws that–with deepest, darker roots that say it’s a crime to assist someone else in committing suicide. It would apply to anyone, not just a doctor–would apply to you or me helping each other. Two sets of doctors and patients–all of the patients are now dead–in New York and Washington respectively–challenged these laws on various constitutional grounds. They found their way to the Supreme Court with the two lower courts each having struck down the laws as applied to mentally competent, terminally ill people who are suffering and want a doctor to give them say a lethal medication. But the two lower courts used different constitutional rationales in striking the laws down.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. So broadly on what grounds now did the Supreme Court say these laws were constitutional, uphold these laws?