Judge Blocks U.S. Bid to Ban Suicide Law
The New York Times
April 18, 2002
By ADAM LIPTAK
A federal judge in Oregon
yesterday rejected an effort
by the Justice Department to
block the state's assisted suicide
law. In a decision sharply critical
of Attorney General John
ASHCROFT, the judge said Mr.
Ashcroft lacked the authority to
decide ``what constitutes the
legitimate practice of medicine.''
The law took effect in 1997 and
has, according to the court, been
used to help end the lives of
about 70 people. Oregon is the
only state that sanctions assisted
suicide.
``This is an important victory not
only for Oregon,'' said Stephen K.
Bushong, an assistant state
attorney general, ``but also for
people of the states who want to look at their own laws
and decide for themselves how to handle medical
practices.''
The Justice Department said it had not decided whether
to appeal. It referred reporters to Assistant Attorney
General Robert McCallum, who said: ``The Department
remains convinced that its interpretation of the Controlled
Substances Act as prohibiting the use of federally
controlled drugs to assist suicide is correct.
``A just and caring society should do its best to assist in
coping with the problems that afflict the terminally ill. It
should not abandon or assist in killing them. Doctors
should not use controlled substances to assist suicide.''
The decision involved a Justice Department effort to use
the Controlled Substances Act, a statute mainly
concerned with drug abuse and illegal drug trafficking, to
punish doctors who complied with requests from patients
under the Oregon law. The law allows mentally competent
patients who are terminally ill to ask their doctors for
lethal drugs.
Doctors must register with the Drug Enforcement
Administration to dispense drugs, and Congress has
authorized the attorney general to revoke those
registrations in some situations.
In November, Mr. Ashcroft issued a directive saying
doctors who dispensed controlled substances were at risk
of having their registrations revoked because those
prescriptions were not for a legitimate medical purpose.
The directive reversed a 1998 determination by Attorney
General Janet Reno, which said the federal government
would not pursue Oregon doctors who complied with the
assisted suicide law.
Oregon sued the federal government after the directive
was issued. It asked the court to prohibit enforcement of
the directive, a request the court granted yesterday.
Eli D. Stutsman, a Portland lawyer who represented a
doctor and a pharmacist in the case, said the directive, if
enforced, would have had serious consequences for his
clients. ``For both individuals, it would have meant the
end of their professional practices,'' Mr. Stutsman said.
The decision by Judge Robert Jones, who was appointed
to the bench by the first President Bush, said Mr. Ashcroft
ignored a promise to Attorney General Hardy Myers of
Oregon that he would consider the state's views. Before
issuing the directive, Judge Jones wrote, Mr. Ashcroft
``did not consult with Oregon public officials, provide
notice to any of them or to the Oregon general public, or
provide opportunity for any public comment anywhere.''
The judge left open the question of whether Congress
itself could pass a law overriding a state's determination of
what constitutes a legitimate medical practice. But, he
wrote, there is no indication in any federal statute,
including the drug law, ``that Congress delegated to
federal prosecutors the authority to define what
constitutes legitimate medical practices.''
Mr. Ashcroft's directive, Judge Jones wrote, was the result
of an effort by Congressional leaders ``to get through the
administrative door what they could not get through the
Congressional door, seeking refuge with the newly
appointed attorney general whose ideology matched their
views.''
Nicholas W. van Aelstyn represented nine terminally ill
patients in the case. Five of them have since died, Mr. van
Aelstyn said, adding, ``Two of them availed themselves of
the law, and the other three were comforted to know they
could have.''
Judge Jones declined to certify the case as a class action
but ruled that additional patients might be added as
plaintiffs later. That ruling appeared to address the fear
that the original plaintiffs would not live to see the
conclusion of the litigation.
Oregon voters approved the law, the Death with Dignity
Act, in 1994, and it has since survived many attacks,
including a constitutional challenge in the courts, a voter
initiative to repeal it and failed legislation in Congress,
supported by Mr. Ashcroft when he was a Missouri
senator.
Mr. van Aelstyn was critical of the way the federal
government attacked the Oregon law, saying, ``Attorney
General Ashcroft attempted to do by executive fiat what he
was twice unable to do as a U.S. Senator.''
Dr. Greg Hamilton, a spokesman for Physicians for
Compassionate Care, which opposes assisted suicide laws,
said that the decision ignored a need for national
standards in this area. ``Assisted suicide is not a
legitimate medical purpose in Oregon or anywhere in the
world.''
Judge Jones emphasized that ``opposition to assisted
suicide may be fully justified, morally, ethically,
religiously or otherwise.'' But, he wrote, such opposition
``does not permit a federal statute to be manipulated from
its true meaning, even to satisfy a worthy goal.''
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