SMITH WON'T TRY TO END ASSISTED SUICIDE

PORTLAND - U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith restated his opposition to
physician-assisted suicide following a federal court ruling upholding
Oregon's law.

And the Oregon Republican said he would not pursue legislation to halt
doctors from prescribing lethal doses of drugs to help terminally ill
patients end their lives.

"I believe this is an issue that Congress has shown it cannot resolve,''
Smith told The Oregonian. ``I've never voted on the issue, and I don't
expect that I ever will vote on the issue.''

Sill, Judge Robert Jones' ruling could inflame election-year rhetoric in
Congress.

Bill Bradbury, Oregon secretary of state and Smith's likely Democratic
opponent, said Smith had failed the state's voters by not working to defend
the Death with Dignity Act.

"This is yet another example of Gordon Smith being out of touch and out of
step with Oregonian values and Oregon families,'' Bradbury said.

U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., a leading critic of Oregon's law, called the
decision "the worst kind of judicial policy-making.''

The ruling could mean that Hyde will reconsider further legislation to bar
assisted suicide, said Jennifer Palmer, a spokeswoman for Hyde.

"I would say the possibility is definitely open,'' she said.

Congress nearly ended Oregon's experiment with assisted suicide two years
ago with a bill that would have prevented doctors from prescribing lethal
doses of listed drugs to terminally ill patients.

The bill appeared to have the support it needed to pass the Senate, but
Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, persuaded some Democrats that the bill
was flawed and asked them to support his filibuster.

The bill stalled after it was attached to a tax-cutting measure, and the
issue was left to the incoming Bush administration.

Smith said he had offered advice to Bush administration officials but had
been ignored.

Among his suggestions: the Justice Department propose a regulation that
says that existing federal law prohibits assisted suicide.

"They didn't do that, and that is unfortunate for all concerned,'' Smith
said. "But what I think they will tell you is what they told me - that they
thought they have a slam-dunk case. Apparently, they don't.''

Smith said he has not asked Republican colleagues in the Senate to hold
back bills that would block the Oregon law.

But he also said they were unlikely to act, given their inability to
overcome Democrats' control of the chamber's agenda.

"I don't believe the Senate will take this issue up again because we
haven't an ability to resolve the differences here,'' Smith said.

Wyden said he expected that Congress would ultimately re-examine the issue.

But as time passes, he said. experience shows that the law gives doctors
the flexibility to improve pain care for all patients at the end of life.

"I will be able to point to a body of evidence that the worst-case scenario
has not played out with respect to Oregon's law,'' he said.