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Court Backs Oregon's Assisted Suicide Law

Posted on: Wednesday, 26 May 2004, 06:00 CDT

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court ordered the Bush administration not to meddle with a state's assisted suicide law, ruling Wednesday that doctors in Oregon may prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients.

Ruling on the nation's only law that allows doctors to assist in hastening the death of a patient, the court said U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft cannot sanction or hold Oregon doctors criminally liable for prescribing overdoses, as the state's voter-approved Death With Dignity Act allows.

"The attorney general's unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician assisted suicide," wrote Judge Richard Tallman in the 2-1 opinion by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He said Ashcroft's action "far exceeds the scope of his authority under federal law."

The Justice Department had concluded that suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose," but Oregon maintained it had the power to declare for itself what types of medical procedures are allowed.

The case dates from April 2002, when a judge in Portland, Ore., blocked the Justice Department from threatening to punish doctors. In a sharp rebuke to Ashcroft, U.S. District Judge Robert Jones ruled that the Controlled Substances Act - the federal law declaring what drugs doctors may prescribe - does not give the federal government the power to say what is a legitimate medical practice.

In a dissent Wednesday, 9th Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace said the courts should give "substantial deference" to the attorney general's findings in the absence of a clear congressional policy.

"Certainly, Congress is free to enact legislation limiting or counteracting the Ashcroft directive's effects," Wallace said.

Oregon voters approved the Death With Dignity Act in 1994 and overwhelmingly affirmed it three years later when it was returned to the ballot following a failed legal challenge that stalled its implementation.

The law allows terminally ill patients with less than six months to live to request a lethal dose of drugs. Two doctors must confirm the diagnosis and determine the patient to be mentally competent to make the request.

In a 1996 Washington state case, the 9th Circuit ruled that assisted suicide was permitted because there was a constitutional right to die. That decision meant Washington state could not prosecute doctors who aided their patients' deaths.

But the following year, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed, saying states could prosecute doctors who assist in suicides - a move some interpreted as signaling that the justices were freeing the states to decide for themselves whether assisted suicide should be allowed.

Since 1998, at least 171 people have used the law to end their lives, according to Oregon state records. Most suffered from cancer.

Ashcroft's directive, which reversed a 1998 opinion by former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, also banned any lethal prescriptions on grounds they did not qualify as medication under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

Oregon argued that regulating and licensing doctors generally has been the sole responsibility of the states, which license doctors to practice medicine. Oregon also said that Congress intended only to prevent illegal drug trafficking by doctors under the Controlled Substances Act, and that it left decisions about medical practice up to the states.

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