Court upholds assisted suicide

A federal appeals court yesterday upheld Oregon’s assisted-suicide law, saying U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s bid to outlaw it “far exceeds the scope of his authority under federal law.”

The 2-to-1 ruling by a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said physicians in Oregon can continue to prescribe lethal doses of medication to mentally competent, terminally ill patients without facing sanctions or federal criminal prosecutions.

Opponents of assisted suicide warned that the panel’s ruling would allow states to obstruct federal drug laws.

Oregon is the only state that allows physician-assisted suicide. Its law, twice approved in referendums by Oregon voters, allows doctors to prescribe deadly drugs for those wishing to kill themselves, although it does not permit physicians to directly participate in acts of suicide.

“The attorney general’s unilateral attempt to repudiate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide” and “far exceeds the scope of his authority under federal law,” Judge Richard Tallman wrote in his opinion, joined by Judge Donald Lay.

Judge Tallman was appointed in 2000 by President Clinton. Judge Lay was a 1966 appointee of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Judge J. Clifford Wallace, who dissented from the ruling, was appointed by President Nixon in 1972.

Charles Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Ashcroft, said the Justice Department is reviewing whether to appeal the 9th Circuit ruling. But “no determination has been made as to what the next step will be.”

Dr. N. Gregory Hamilton, an Oregon psychiatrist and a leading opponent of that state’s assisted-suicide law, said yesterday he thought both sides in the case were prepared to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if they lost in the 9th Circuit.

“If this decision is allowed to stand, any state can exempt itself from federal drug laws … as Oregon has done,” he said.

Approved by voters in 1994 and again three years later, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act took effect in 1997. It allows physicians to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to patients of sound mind, who are thought to have less than six months to live. Under the law, doctors do not administer the lethal doses.

In 2001, Mr. Ashcroft ruled that the Death With Dignity Act violated federal drug laws, and he authorized criminal prosecutions of doctors who prescribe medications that can kill people seeking to commit suicide.

Mr. Ashcroft’s ruling became known as the “Ashcroft Directive.” It said that physician-assisted suicide serves “no legitimate medical purpose” and that doctors who prescribe controlled narcotics to kill people under Oregon’s assisted-suicide law could face criminal penalties and license suspension or revocation.

A doctor, a pharmacist, several terminally ill patients, the state of Oregon and a group called Compassion in Dying of Oregon filed suit to block the Ashcroft Directive in federal court soon after it was imposed.

A federal judge issued an injunction to halt enforcement of the order in 2002, and the Bush administration appealed that ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In oral arguments last year, Justice Department lawyers held that Mr. Ashcroft had the right to bar Oregon doctors from prescribing controlled narcotics for the purpose of killing patients. They said Oregon’s assisted-suicide law violates the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which limits the use of the drugs to medical purposes.

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