ONLY THE DYING KNOW THEIR CHOICE

You'd think John Ashcroft would have better things to do than pick on sick
people.

I mean, what with anthrax in the mail and terrorists on the loose, I find
it incredible that he has the time -- not to mention the inclination.
Specifically, he went gunning earlier this month for the state of Oregon's
Death With Dignity Act. The act, twice approved by voters, allows a
terminally ill patient to seek a doctor's help in ending his or her life.
Two physicians must first agree that the patient has less than six months
to live. The patient must also be certified mentally competent to make that
decision.

Ashcroft ordered Drug Enforcement Agency officials to crack down on doctors
who dispense controlled substances with the aim of ending a patient's life.
That, he said, is not a "legitimate medical purpose." A federal judge has
since issued a restraining order and the dispute is headed for a legal
showdown today.

Ashcroft ought to reconsider. His order is intrusive and offensive. And I
say this as a less-than-staunch supporter of physician-assisted suicide.

Frankly, it's hard to imagine the circumstances under which I might decide
to end my own life. I believe you must always leave room for miracles. And
that life is always preferable to death.

But the thing is, it's easy to say that when your health is good. Would I
still say it in the end stages of a terminal illness, drifting in a
universe of agony as unbearable as it was unending? Would I say it if life
became a torment and death a release?

I like to think I would. But I don't know. None of us can ever truly knows
how we would respond in such a circumstance until, God forbid, we are in
it. And if I can't say for sure what I would do if I were there, how can I
presume to decide what you must do when you are? That takes more gall than
I can muster.

The attorney general suffers no such failing. To the contrary, the man who
once promised not to use the law to enforce his personal beliefs is
cheerfully using the law to enforce his personal beliefs. This, despite the
fact that his political party -- the GOP -- preaches a gospel of
less-intrusive government and declares that people ought to be left alone
to decide most things for themselves.

Apparently, that holds true only if the people decide as the government wishes.

His rationalizing about the proper use of controlled substances aside, it's
hard to see where Ashcroft's order upholds the Constitution, protects the
safety of others, validates any worthwhile principle or, indeed, serves any
interest beyond putting the force of law behind his unease with
physician-assisted suicide. I don't begrudge him the unease. Many
reasonable people certainly share it. But unease alone is no basis for him
to wedge himself into a question already decided by Oregon voters.

I'm reminded of what was, for me, the most horrific image of Sept. 11: the
people jumping. Some holding hands, some all alone, they stepped from
burning skyscrapers and plunged toward death on the sidewalk below.

I can never know what they saw or felt that was so awful that this became
the preferred alternative. I do know that, appalling as it was, there was
also something in the act of suicide under those conditions that was
defiant and even life-affirming.

Think about it. Death was an imminent certainty, imposed upon them by
factors beyond their control. And they seized back their own destiny. They
would decide the moment and manner of their destruction.

I bet most of us watching instinctively understood why they did what they
did. I suspect even the attorney general would not reproach them for it.

So why reproach people in Oregon who do the same thing?

Fact is, Ashcroft is no better equipped than I to make end-of-life choices
for someone else. Neither of us can say when someone else's pain is too
much to bear. Neither of us can determine when it's time for someone else
to let go of that slim reed, hope. Neither of us can decide.

And neither of us has any business trying.