Author: Sam Howe Verhovek

FEDERAL JUDGE STOPS EFFORT TO OVERTURN SUICIDE LAW

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Siding with the State of Oregon, the only state to
legalize assisted suicide, a federal judge issued an order here today that
would temporarily block Attorney General John Ashcroft's move earlier this
week to overturn the law.

The judge, Robert E. Jones of Federal District Court, granted a temporary
restraining order, sought by the Oregon attorney general, Hardy Myers, and
several terminally ill people as well as organizations in favor of the law.
The order will be in effect until Nov. 20., and unless it is overturned by
a higher court, the order means that doctors in the state may continue to
prescribe lethal medications under the terms of the law.

Under the state's so-called Death with Dignity Act, which was passed by
voters in 1994 and took effect in 1997 after legal challenges, a terminally
ill patient may take the lethal drugs if two doctors agree that the person
has less than six months to live and is mentally competent to make the
decision to end his life. At least 70 people have ended their lives this
way in Oregon under the law.

On Tuesday, Mr. Ashcroft, declaring that assisted suicide is not a
"legitimate medical purpose" for prescribing or dispensing medication,
authorized federal drug agents to revoke the license of any doctor acting
under terms of the law here, who prescribed lethal drugs for their
patients. His action reversed a Clinton administration policy that allowed
the Oregon law to stand.

But in the ruling today, issued after a brief hearing, Judge Jones said
that the state law should remain in effect, at least temporarily, while he
heard the broader challenge being mounted by the state and at least four
terminally ill patients, who contend that Mr. Ashcroft's directive amounts
to excessive intrusion into Oregon's right to regulate medicine.

"There is no showing that the U.S. would be irreparably impaired by a
temporary stay of the attorney general's action," Judge Jones said in his
ruling, referring to the Ashcroft directive.

The ruling came late in the day, and federal attorneys are considering
whether to appeal it. The order was hailed by several of the patients and
by Compassion in Dying and Oregon Death with Dignity, two organizations
that have worked to promote the right to assisted suicide.