SUICIDE AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY

Last week, a federal court in Portland ruled that the Bush
administration can't prevent doctors in Oregon from giving
medications to help dying patients end their lives on their own
terms. That was the purpose behind Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's
directive last year, which said assisting suicide is not a legitimate
medical purpose and threatened to punish physicians who write such
prescriptions.

Faced with this ruling, Assistant Atty. Gen. Robert McCallum
expressed the administration's objection to this form of euthanasia:
"A just and caring society should do its best to assist in coping
with the problems that afflict the terminally ill. It should not
abandon or assist in killing them. Doctors should not use controlled
substances to assist suicide."

This is a legitimate position, which the administration has every
right to argue. The case against physician-assisted suicide in
principle is a serious one that ought to be heard and considered.
Apparently it has been in most states, which have not legalized the
practice. But the place to make it is with the voters of Oregon, who
in 1994 approved the Death With Dignity Act, making theirs the first
state in the country to allow assisted suicide. About 70 people have
used it since it took effect in 1997.

Ashcroft and the president he serves have both defended the rights of
states to make their own decisions on important matters, without
undue interference from Washington. That's what Oregon tried to do
here, and the Clinton administration deferred to the state's judgment.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno rejected the notion that she could use the
federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to block implementation of
the Death With Dignity Act. Congress rejected bills that would have
achieved the same purpose. Ashcroft, however, decided that federal
drug laws gave him the power to override the preferences of Oregon
voters.

U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones ruled that the attorney general
has no such authority. "The determination of what constitutes a
legitimate medical practice or purpose traditionally has been left to
the individual states," he noted. "State statutes, state medical
boards, and state regulations control the practice of medicine."

Nothing in the law, he concluded, "suggests that Congress intended to
delegate to the attorney general or the Drug Enforcement Agency the
authority to decide, as a matter of national policy, a question of
such magnitude as whether physician-assisted suicide constitutes a
legitimate medical purpose or practice."

The fears about physician-assisted suicide--that it may reduce
respect for life, that it may put pressure on fatally ill patients to
choose an earlier death than they would prefer, that it may be open
to abuse--are not irrational. But neither are the voters of Oregon,
who can weigh such factors in deciding what medical options should be
available within their borders.

The opponents of assisted suicide lost in federal court. They are
free to renew the fight in the court of public opinion, which is
where they should have been all along.