AN INSULT TO STATES' RIGHTS

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's attempt to eviscerate the "Death with
Dignity" law twice approved by Oregon voters has been temporarily blocked
by a federal judge. But the temporary restraining order issued by U.S.
District Judge Robert Jones is due to expire today - meaning Ashcroft could
renew his efforts to make a mockery of states' rights.

Frankly, we'd think Ashcroft would find better things to do with his
time, such as fighting terrorism. But he has been willing to carve out
time to torment terminally ill Oregonians who may wish to leave this
world without the unendurable pain and staggering expense that so
often marks the last few days of life.

Oscar Wilde said that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to
virtue. Ashcroft certainly fits that pattern in this case.
Technically, he hasn't tried to overturn the Oregon law, which has
survived repeated legal challenges and was approved twice by voters.

But Ashcroft tried to emasculate the law by ordering the Drug
Enforcement Administration to punish doctors who prescribe lethal
drugs to terminally ill patients by removing their licenses to
prescribe medication.

Thus, in effect, any doctor who did his duty under state law would be
denied the right to practice medicine. While that end-run around state
law may (or may not) survive court challenges, it clearly constitutes
a major federal intrusion into an area, regulation of medical
standards, that has traditionally been reserved for the states.

We frankly see no pressing reason to stick the bayonet of federal
coercion against the throat of Oregon doctors and patients. The cruel
fact is that modern medicine can sometimes extend life at the cost of
turning that extension into a form of torture.

Oregon's law allows doctors to ease that torture by writing
prescriptions for lethal drugs for patients with less than six months
to live, as certified by two physicians. The patients must take the
drugs themselves. About 70 people have used the law to hasten their
deaths. Others have obtained such drugs as insurance if their state
should deteriorate, but have died natural deaths without using those
drugs.

Is the fact that 70 people have escaped the last few weeks of fatal
illnesses really a "federal case" that justifies Ashcroft's wanton
assault on the Tenth Amendment? In our view, no.

For the benefit of Ashcroft - and anyone else who has forgotten the Bill of
Rights - here is the text of the Tenth Amendment:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states
respectively, or to the people."

Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is the federal government given the
right to revoke the medical licenses of doctors whose only crime is
following state law. Ashcroft should back off - or Judge Jones should
uphold the Constitution by making the injunction against the attorney
general permanent.