The Court observed that in “almost every State – indeed, in almost every western democracy – it is a crime to assist a suicide. The Court concluded that “we are confronted with a consistent and almost universal tradition that has long rejected the asserted right, and continues explicitly to reject it today, even for terminally ill, mentally competent adults.” The Court declared that to “hold for respondents, we would have to reverse centuries of legal doctrine and practice, and strike down the standard policy choice of almost every state.” Because assisted suicide has been consistently rejected in the history and tradition of our nation, the Court wrote, “the asserted ‘right’ to assistance in committing suicide is not a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause.” The Court’s ruling was 9-0.