Contact: Scott Swenson, (202) 969.1669

Washington, D.C. / Portland, OR --- Attorney General John Ashcroft today appealed a lower court decision in the case Oregon v. Ashcroft to the United States Supreme Court.  The case began in November 2001 when Ashcroft ordered Drug Enforcement Agents to prosecute physicians and pharmacists who were practicing legally under the Oregon Death with Dignity law.  The law allows terminally-ill mentally competent patients who meet stringent safeguards to request a lethal prescription from their physicians to bring an end to their suffering.  The law has worked flawlessly for nearly seven years bringing peace of mind to terminally ill Oregonians and serving as a catalyst for reform in pain management and palliative care.

“The Oregon Death with Dignity law has prevailed in four hearings during the Ashcroft case – the preliminary injunction, the permanent injunction, the District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  We are prepared to win in the Supreme Court if necessary, but doubt the Court will take this case as there is no new law here to determine,” said Eli D. Stutsman, Death with Dignity National Center President and the Portland attorney representing physicians and pharmacists in the litigation.

“This is Ashcroft’s parting shot from the far-right at the people of Oregon. Rumors suggest he will leave the Bush Administration, but he had to take on last shot – and that’s politics – but supporters of Death with Dignity have taken lots of shots from Ashcroft and we’ve returned fire and beat him back every time – we will again at the Supreme Court,” said Scott Swenson, Executive Director of the Death with Dignity National Center based in Portland, Oregon, with offices in Washington, D.C.

In two 1997 Supreme Court cases, the Court stated clearly that states have the right to pass Death with Dignity laws, and in the first federal challenge to Oregon’s law, Lee v. Oregon, the Court denied cert, allowing the Ninth Circuit ruling to stand and Oregon’s law to go into effect.

The question before the court in this case is if the Attorney General has overstepped his bounds by misinterpreting the Controlled Substances Act to try to overturn Oregon’s law. Each of the lower court decisions in the case have been strongly worded repudiations of the Attorney General’s position.

Oregon’s Death with Dignity law went into effect after court delays in 1997. It was passed by voter initiative in 1994 and again in 1997, and now has nearly seven years of clinical data suggesting that all of the opposition arguments against the law are invalid and that law works as intended, an option of last resort for people suffering from terminal illness.

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