ASHCROFT VS. STATES' RIGHTS

YOU'D THINK THAT U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft could fill his day issuing
vague terrorism alerts and not finding the source of anthrax. But no. He
has time to quash state laws he doesn't like. He's now after Oregon's
assisted-suicide law, which the Beaver State's voters have passed two times.

Now wait a sec, you say. Aren't Ashcroft and his boss, George W. Bush, both
conservatives who want to send more power back to the states? As the song
goes, states' rights is a sometimes thing. They believe that states should
run their own affairs, as long as the religious right and big business approve.

For big business, the Bush administration pushes a patients' rights bill
that overturns stronger protections enacted in several states. And it gives
the federal government authority to seize land for transmission lines, thus
bypassing local government.

For cultural conservatives, Ashcroft's Justice Department endeavors to gut
state initiatives allowing the use of medical marijuana. Examples of their
urgent work: The Feds recently uprooted a marijuana garden tended by
patients in California and raided a West Hollywood cannabis buyers' club.

Now, in defense of his allegedly pro-life principles, the attorney general
has engineered an assault on Oregon's assisted-suicide law. Do note that
Ashcroft has no problem with government-assisted homicide, a.k.a. the death
penalty.

First approved by Oregon voters in 1994, the Death with Dignity Act lets
doctors write lethal prescriptions for terminally ill people who want the
option to die if their agony becomes too great. To qualify for the
intervention, patients must obtain statements from two doctors that these
suffering people have less than six months to live.

Under the Oregon law, the patients themselves must administer the drugs.
Only about 70 have done so to date. Others obtain the prescriptions but
don't use them. The drugs provide an assurance that they can swiftly end
their lives should the pain become unendurable.

Fully aware that they are intruding on a state's right to regulate medical
practices, so-called conservatives take sly paths in frustrating the Oregon
law. In 1999, House Republicans passed the cynically named Pain Relief
Promotion Act. The legislation did not actually overturn the Oregon law. It
merely threatened doctors who prescribed drugs "for the purpose of causing
death" with up to 20 years in jail. The bill died in the Senate, thanks to
a promised filibuster by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Now it's Ashcroft's turn to whack the Oregon law. He, it is true, would
leave the statute on the books. But he gives the Drug Enforcement
Administration a green light to go after any doctor who prescribes lethal
drugs to terminally ill patients. If convicted, doctors can lose their
licenses to practice medicine.

Oregon is the only state with a formal physician-assisted suicide law. But
the Ashcroft order should disturb doctors everywhere who must care for with
dying patients.

It's a poorly kept secret that physicians already prescribe drugs that
hasten death in the name of pain reduction. The famous morphine drip is a
prime example. It eases suffering but also suppresses breathing. Giving
narcotics like morphine to people close to death is proper and humane.

The attorney general's new policy would have DEA agents breathing down the
necks of doctors and family members coping with a desperately ill patient.
Dealing in the gray areas of medicine is best left to the primary players.
The federal government has no place stomping around hospitals and hospices
to second-guess the wrenching decisions that must be made.

Given the daunting challenge of protecting America against terrorism, one
must ask what prompts Ashcroft to embark on a new mission of moral meddling
in local affairs. Perhaps it offers him a comforting return to the
familiar. A culture war is far more pleasant than a real one.

Oregonians are an independent lot with a strong libertarian streak. Many do
not approve of the assisted-suicide law, but like even less the federal
government's attempt to usurp their state's will. Oregon has taken the
matter to federal court.

Ashcroft may be ineffectual in handling the anthrax crisis, but at least he
belongs there. Whether America is at war or at peace, however, the attorney
general has no business forcing his selective morality onto state policies.
It's not that he doesn't have other things to do.

Froma Harrop is a Journal editorial writer and syndicated columnist.