OREGON'S ASSISTED SUICIDES UPHELD

Ashcroft Challenge Called Attempt to Usurp State Rights

A federal judge in Portland ruled today that the Bush administration lacks
the authority to overturn a voter-backed Oregon law permitting
physician-assisted suicide.

U.S. District Judge Robert Jones scolded Attorney General John D. Ashcroft,
saying that the federal government was attempting to usurp the rights of a
state when the Justice Department announced its intent to prosecute doctors
who prescribe lethal doses of drugs to their terminally ill and dying patients.

"The citizens of Oregon, through their democratic initiative process, have
chosen to resolve the moral, legal and ethical debate on physician-assisted
suicide for themselves by voting -- not once, but twice -- in favor of the
Oregon act," Jones wrote in his order.

Jones said that Ashcroft attempted to "stifle an ongoing, earnest and
profound debate in the various states concerning physician-assisted
suicide," and that "with no advance warning . . . fired the first shot in
the battle between the state of Oregon and the federal government."

Oregon is the only state to have legalized physician-assisted suicide -- an
immensely controversial practice that raises ethical, medical and religious
questions about the appropriate role for doctors in hastening or forbidding
what advocates call "an early exit." Today's decision was a clear victory
for advocates of allowing doctors to prescribe drugs to hasten an
inevitable death. But this will not end the debate in the courts, in
Washington and in hospital corridors.

The Justice Department is considering an appeal, said Robert McCallum, an
assistant attorney general. It would be heard by the 9th Circuit Court in
San Francisco, and the process would likely take about 18 months.
Meanwhile, the Oregon law remains in force, and other states are
considering similar measures.

McCallum repeated the administration's contention that "assisting suicide
is not medicine."

"Terminally ill patients are among the most vulnerable members of our
society," he said. "Medical studies make clear that these individuals often
suffer from undiagnosed depression and inadequately treated pain. 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."

Oregon voters first approved the Death With Dignity Act in 1994, and then
again three years later after a failed legal challenge.

Under that law, a patient who seeks a prescription for lethal drugs must be
shown to be mentally competent and must have, in the opinion of two
doctors, less than six months to live. Although doctors prescribe the
powerful sedatives or narcotics, they are not allowed to administer them to
cause death.If the patient is incapable of taking the drugs without aid, a
friend or relative may help.

In the past four years, 91 people in Oregon have chosen to end their lives
with the help of their physicians, according to records kept by the state.

"The system has worked in Oregon," said Kathryn Tucker, one of the
attorneys who defended the law in court and the director of legal affairs
for the group Compassion in Dying Federation.

Tucker said that the number of patients choosing suicide has been
relatively low and that there have not been allegations of abuse or coercion.

Opponents of physician-assisted suicide decried the court action.

Burke Balch, a director of the National Right to Life Committee, said, "The
American people do not want their federal government to facilitate
euthanasia." Balch said he was confident the decision would be reversed on
appeal.

Jan LaRue, a director of the Family Research Council, said, "Medicine by
definition is the art of treating and curing. Drugs are for curing, not
killing."

During the Clinton administration, Attorney General Janet Reno concluded
that the federal government could not bar Oregon doctors from prescribing
drugs to hasten death.

But in November, Ashcroft ordered Drug Enforcement Administration agents to
pursue cases against such doctors. Ashcroft argued that the lethal
prescriptions served no "legitimate medical purpose" and violated the
federal Controlled Substances Act, whose primary purpose is to regulate
drugs that can be abused, from marijuana to prescription pain killers.

Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers immediately went to court and
challenged the "Ashcroft directive," and Jones issued a temporary
restraining order against Ashcroft in November. Today, Jones ruled again
for the state, blocking the federal government from pursuing Oregon doctors.

Jones said he was not required to rule on the practice of
physician-assisted suicide, but a narrower point of law -- whether the
federal government, through the Controlled Substances Act, can seek to bar
physicians from writing prescriptions to assist in suicide.

Jones concluded that the Controlled Substances Act, as well as legislative
history behind the act, did not support the Ashcroft directive. The federal
government, Jones wrote, is not authorized "to act as a national medical
board" and regulate how physicians treat their patients.

Steve Bushong, a deputy Oregon attorney general who has defended the state
law, argued that Congress intended only to prevent illegal drug-trafficking
by doctors under the Controlled Substances Act, and it left any decisions
about medical practice up to the states.

Alan Bates, a physician and a member of the Oregon Legislature, said
today's ruling "allows us to continue to practice medicine without fear of
losing our licenses." He warned that "once you start telling physicians how
to handle their patients, you've made a huge mistake."

Supporters of the Oregon law said a ruling in favor of Ashcroft could have
had a chilling effect on the care of gravely ill patients because doctors
might fear that prescribing too much pain medication could invite federal
prosecution.

McCallum, the assistant attorney general, made clear that was not the
intent of the Justice Department, saying that appropriate use of pain
medications was "one of the most important positive alternatives to suicide."

Jones said he understood that society has not settled its mind on the
question. "My task is not to criticize those who oppose the concept of
assisted suicide for any reason," Jones wrote. "Many of our citizens,
including the highest respected leaders of this country, oppose assisted
suicide. But the fact that opposition to assisted suicide may be fully
justified, morally, ethically, religiously or otherwise, does not permit a
federal statute to be manipulated from its true meaning to satisfy even a
worthy goal."