ASSISTED-SUICIDE LAW FACES NEW CHALLENGES IN COURT, CONGRESS

* Opponents Again Will Try To Persuade A Judge And A Subcommittee To Block
The Oregon Statute

Opponents of physician-assisted suicide will take their case to court and
to Congress this week.

On Monday, National Right to Life lawyers will renew their efforts to
persuade a federal judge in Eugene to block the Oregon law, which allows
terminally ill adults to obtain lethal doses of pills.

The following day, a congressional subcommittee will begin hearings on a
bill that would hit the law from a different angle -- in effect, putting a
doctor's livelihood at stake for assisting in a suicide.

Neither the court nor Congress is expected to immediately alter the law's
status. U.S. District Judge Michael R. Hogan is not expected to make a
ruling Monday, and Tuesday's congressional hearing is just the first step
in what probably will be a protracted debate.

But opponents and supporters of assisted suicide will watch for clues about
how strategies for stopping the Oregon law might fare. And the dual
hearings will showcase ongoing efforts by opponents, primarily the National
Right to Life, the U.S. Catholic Conference and a largely Republican group
of lawmakers.

"There is a series of legal strategies, and the opponents will continue to
have something in their back pocket," said Valerie Vollmar, a professor at
Willamette University College of Law. "At this point, they show no signs
whatsoever of slowing down or stopping."

Approved by voters in 1994 and reaffirmed in 1997, Oregon's Death With
Dignity Act has been in effect for less than nine months because of court
challenges. At least four terminally ill people have used it to end their
lives since a court injunction against the law was lifted Oct. 27, 1997.

Vollmar, who has tracked the assisted-suicide issue closely, says opponents
have developed a pattern of rolling out new strategies to stop the bill
each time a previous one failed.

"You have to admire their organization and their bag of ideas they have
waiting in the wings. They certainly are doing battle," said Vollmar, who
said she supports Oregon's law but speaks on the topic as a neutral
observer.

Groundwork for the congressional battle against assisted suicide was laid
in June 1997 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that there is no
constitutional right to assisted suicide and that the issue is up to each
state to decide.

Soon after the court's ruling, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops
contacted Rep. Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill., to discuss whether assisted suicide
might violate federal drug laws.

Hyde and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, raised the issue with the Drug
Enforcement Administration.

In November, the day after Oregonians defeated an attempt to repeal the
assisted-suicide law, DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine sent a letter to
Hatch and Hyde. Constantine wrote that he thought Oregon's law violated
federal drug laws and that his agency could yank doctors' federal
drug-prescribing privileges for giving terminally ill patients drugs to
assist in suicides.

Last month, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno overruled Constantine,
deciding the DEA lacks the authority to sanction doctors acting under
Oregon's law.

The day of Reno's announcement, Hyde, chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee, introduced a bill that would amend federal drug laws to broaden
the authority of the attorney general and hence the DEA.

The Lethal Drug Abuse and Prevention Act of 1998 would set up a medical
review board to deny, suspend or revoke a doctor's federal drug-prescribing
privileges if the doctor prescribed or intended to prescribe drugs to
assist in a suicide or euthanasia. The attorney general would name medical
regulatory and pain relief experts to the board.

Most physicians could not practice without their federal privileges, which
enable them to prescribe powerful painkillers and sedatives used to treat
everything from post-surgical pain to anxiety.

Tuesday's first hearing on the bill will be before the House Judiciary
Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution.

Although the bill seemed to have broad initial support, the American
Medical Association and the National Hospice Organization since have come
out against it. Both groups oppose assisted suicide, but they fear that
Hyde's bill would discourage the aggressive use of drugs to control pain,
anxiety and other symptoms suffered by dying patients.

Assisted-suicide supporters welcome these powerful groups as rare allies.
Eli Stutsman, attorney for Oregon Right to Die, said opposition to the bill
from the AMA helps establish its poor design. He said the bill's supporters
are attacking assisted suicide indirectly through federal drug laws to
avoid being blatant about their true intentions.

"It's a naked attempt to interfere with what one state has done after a
very extended process of debate," Stutsman said.

But Dr. Gregory Hamilton, who will testify before the subcommittee as
president of an anti-assisted-suicide group, Physicians for Compassionate
Care, said Congress will hear plenty of support for the bill.

Assisted suicide "is not just a parochial issue for Oregon," he said. "It's
a major way of viewing humanity that is inconsistent with the principles of
our Constitution."

Vollmar thinks the opposition from organized medicine, however, could doom
the legislation.

"If it was just Oregon people, maybe they would ignore us. But it's a lot
harder to go against the AMA," she said.

Meanwhile, assisted-suicide opponents will be in Eugene on Monday to ask
Hogan to reinstate a lawsuit arguing that the Death With Dignity Act is
unconstitutional.

Hogan blocked the Oregon law after voters approved it in 1994. He later
declared it unconstitutional on the grounds that it did not have adequate
safeguards.

But in 1997, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Hogan, saying
the plaintiff did not have standing to sue because the law did not injure
her.

Janice Elsner, who has muscular dystrophy, had argued that she might use
the law in a state of depression, even though she was morally opposed to
assisted suicide. But the 9th Circuit said her argument was hypothetical.
In order to have standing to sue in federal court, plaintiffs must prove
that the laws they seek to overturn actually injure them.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal. In October, the 9th
Circuit dismissed the suit, and the law was put into effect.

Elsner's attorneys asked Hogan for another chance. They said that because
the Death With Dignity Act allowed only the terminally ill to kill
themselves, it stigmatized them as having lives less worth living than
everyone else.

Assisted-suicide supporters say that it's too late to raise a new argument
for standing and that, in any case, the "stigmatic injury" argument does
not overcome the 9th Circuit's objections to the suit.

Because of a series of delays, Hogan has yet to decide whether he will
allow Elsner's attorneys to reinstate the case. He's also considering
motions to add a terminally ill plaintiff, Troy Thompson, who has Lou
Gehrig's disease, to the suit and certify it as a class action.

Although Hogan could issue another injunction, blocking the law, Monday's
hearing is expected to consist only of oral arguments on the procedural
motions before the court. None of the attorneys involved in the case
expects Hogan to rule on those preliminary matters from the bench.

"Most commonly, judges take things under advisement and then issue their
opinion later," said Richard Coleson, one of Elsner's attorneys, who is
affiliated with the National Right to Life Committee.

But Thompson, who is immobilized by his disease and communicates using his
eyes, and his wife, Marilyn Thompson, are hoping for the best. The couple
sent an e-mail to friends and supporters asking them to pray for Hogan's
wisdom and for the Thompson family. Marilyn Thompson said she expects
perhaps a dozen supporters to come to the hearing in Hogan's court.

"I hope he's got enough information that he can make a decision in our
favor," Marilyn Thompson said.