DR. ASHCROFT OVERRULES OREGON VOTERS

WASHINGTON - You'd think John Ashcroft would have better things to do than
pick on sick people. I mean, what with anthrax in the mail and terrorists
on the loose, I find it incredible that he has the time -- not to mention
the inclination. Specifically, he went gunning last week for the state of
Oregon's Death With Dignity Act. The act, twice approved by voters, allows
a terminally ill patient to seek a doctor's help in ending his or her life.
Two physicians must first agree that the patient has less than six months
to live. The patient must also be certified mentally competent to make that
decision.

Ashcroft ordered Drug Enforcement Agency officials to crack down on doctors
who dispense controlled substances with the aim of ending a patient's life.
That, he said, is not a "legitimate medical purpose." A federal judge has
since issued a restraining order and the dispute is headed for a legal
showdown. Ashcroft ought to reconsider. His order is intrusive and
offensive. And I say this as a less-than-staunch supporter of
physician-assisted suicide.

Frankly, it's hard to imagine the circumstances under which I might decide
to end my own life. I believe you must always leave room for miracles. And
that life is always preferable to death.

But it's easy to say that when your health is good. Would I still say it in
the end stages of a terminal illness, drifting in a universe of agony as
unbearable as it was unending? Would I say it if life became a torment, and
death a release?

I like to think I would. But I don't know. None of us can ever truly know
how we would respond in such a circumstance until, God forbid, we are in
it. And if I can't say for sure what I would do if I were there, how can I
presume to decide what you must do when you are?

The attorney general, who once promised not to use the law to enforce his
personal beliefs, is cheerfully using the law to enforce his personal
beliefs. This, despite the fact that his political party -- the GOP --
preaches a gospel of less-intrusive government and declares that people
ought to be left alone to decide most things for themselves. Apparently,
that only holds true if the people decide as the government wishes.

His specious rationalizing about the proper use of controlled substances
aside, it's hard to see where John Ashcroft's order upholds the
constitution, protects the safety of others, validates any worthwhile
principle or, indeed, serves any interest beyond putting the force of law
behind his unease with physician-assisted suicide. I don't begrudge him the
unease. Many reasonable people certainly share it. But unease alone is no
basis for him to wedge himself into a question already decided by Oregon
voters.

I'm reminded of what was, for me, the most horrific image of Sept. 11: the
people jumping. Some holding hands, some all alone, they stepped from
burning skyscrapers and plunged toward death.

I can never know what they saw or felt that was so awful that this became
the preferred alternative. I do know that, appalling as it was, there was
also something in the act of suicide under those conditions that was
defiant and even life-affirming.

Think about it. Death was an imminent certainty, imposed upon them by
factors beyond their control. And they seized back their own destiny. They
would decide the moment and manner of their destruction.

I bet most of us watching instinctively understood why they did what they
did. I suspect the attorney general would not reproach them for it.

So why reproach people in Oregon who do the same thing?