ASHCROFT HAS NO RIGHT TO IMPOSE VALUES

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
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 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 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 only holds true if the people decide as the
government wishes.

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, John 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.