LET 'DEATH WITH DIGNITY ACT' LIVE, MR. ATTORNEY GENERAL

Ashcroft Should Focus On Other Issues

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 last week 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 on Tuesday.

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 circumstance 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'd like to think I would. But I don't know. None of us can ever truly know
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 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 out to be left alone to
decide most things for themselves.

His specious rationalizing about the proper use of controlled substances
aside, it's hard to see where John 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.

Fact is, John Ashcroft is no better equipped than me 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.

And neither of us has any business trying.