RSSState's Right, Attorney General's Wrong
By Dale McFeatters, Scripps Howard News Service, Jan. 18, 2006
Editorial
An early indication that the Bush administration would be flexible on conservative principles it found inconvenient came when then-Attorney General John Ashcroft sought to kill Oregon's Death With Dignity Act.
That law, twice approved by Oregon voters, clearly fell within the rights the Constitution left to the states, but there was the GOP's "base" to be appeased. So Ashcroft threatened to use federal anti-drug laws to take away the prescription-writing authority of any physician who prescribed a lethal dose of drugs.
What Oregon had done in 1994 was to allow doctors to prescribe, but not administer, a life-ending "cocktail" to a patient who requested it, had been determined to be terminally ill, and found by a psychiatrist to be mentally competent.
Through 2004, prescriptions were issued to 325 people, but only 208 had taken them, pointing up a curious phenomenon _ that many did not take the cocktail but took comfort in knowing they could if their terminal illness became unbearable.
In a 6-3 decision affirming rulings by two lower courts, the Supreme Court properly found that the attorney general had overreached and that Ashcroft's loose reading of the Controlled Substance Act would effectively put final say over general standards of medical practice in the hands of the Justice Department.
Justice Anthony Kennedy hinted at the political motivation behind the attempt to override the Oregon law by noting that Ashcroft's action was "beyond his expertise" and taken "without consulting Oregon or apparently anyone outside his department." Moreover, nowhere had Congress said physician-assisted suicide was a crime.
In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said that the ruling was inconsistent with the court decision last year upholding a federal override of California's medical-marijuana law. Perhaps so, but the Bush administration should have stayed out of that one, too.
Foreshortening a life made unbearable by pain is an uncomfortable issue for many, and there seems no immediate likelihood of a rush of similar laws now that Oregon's has stood. But with advances in life-extending medical technology and the aging of baby boomers, the legislatures and the courts will be increasingly called on to deal with end-of-life issues.
Contact Dale McFeatters at McFeattersD(at)SHNS.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.
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For more than 14 years, the Death with Dignity National Center (DDNC), a 501(c)(3), non-partisan, non-profit organization, has been the leading advocate in the death with dignity movement. Leaders in our organization originally wrote and have continued advocating for the Oregon Death with Dignity Law. DDNC has met these challenges through extensive legal defense of the Oregon law, education and outreach programs, and by developing and nurturing diverse financial resources with one goal in mind: to ensure DDNC's financial vitality and its position as a leader in the death with dignity movement.
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The Death with Dignity National Center partners with the Oregon Death with Dignity Political Action Fund (the Fund) to conduct lobbying and political activities in order to achieve the enactment of Death with Dignity laws in other states. The partnership resulted in tremendous success with the resounding win in the 2008 Washington Death with Dignity campaign.
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The greatest human freedom is to live, and die, according to one's own desires and beliefs. The most common desire among those with a terminal illness is to die with some measure of dignity. From advance directives to physician-assisted dying, death with dignity is a movement to provide options for the dying to control their own end-of-life care.
Death with Dignity National Center (DDNC) is the leader in this movement, successfully establishing, advancing and defending the landmark Oregon Death with Dignity Act -- a national catalyst for openly discussing and actively reforming end-of-life care for those who are terminally ill.
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