Subject: Judge Extends Block on Ashcroft Assisted Suicide Order
Source: Associated Press, Salem (OR) Statesman Journal; November 20, 2001

Judge Extends Block on Ashcroft Assisted Suicide Order

Portland, OR -- A federal judge extended a court order Tuesday that blocks
an attempt by pro-life Attorney General John Ashcroft to dismantle
Oregon's one-of-a-kind law allowing assisted suicides.

U.S. District Judge Robert Jones extended his Nov. 8 temporary restraining
order and gave attorneys up to five months to prepare arguments in
Oregon's case against the Justice Department. The judge said his order
``nullifies giving any legal effect'' to Ashcroft's directive - in other
words, doctors should not fear legal repercussions if they follow the
Oregon law.

The state has asked Jones to permanently block Ashcroft's Nov. 6 order
that prohibited doctors from prescribing lethal doses of federally
controlled drugs to terminally ill patients. At least 70 people have used
the law since it took effect, according to state health officials. All
have done so with a federally controlled drug.

Ashcroft's order prompted the court challenge, with Oregon officials
saying the government was trying to strip the state of its right to govern
the practice of medicine.

During a four-hour hearing, Justice Department attorneys argued that
Oregon does not have the right to be an exception to federal drug laws.
But Steve Bushong, an Oregon assistant attorney general, argued that
Ashcroft's order exceeded powers given to him by Congress.

The judge also voiced displeasure with the way Ashcroft had issued the
order - he has called it an ``edict'' - and questioned whether the order
might discourage doctors elsewhere worried about overprescribing pain
medication. Jones posed a hypothetical situation requiring a doctor to
prescribe so much medicine to a patient suffering great pain it renders
him or her unconscious, and then hastens death.

Such situations are common, the judge suggested. ``Doctors are then
subjected to scrutiny,'' Jones said. However, Ashcroft confirmed that
doctors prescribing medication to control pain with the intent of
alleviating pain -- not killing the patient -- will not be subject to
prosecution.

Under Oregon's assisted suicide law, doctors may provide - but not
administer - a lethal prescription to terminally ill adult state
residents. It requires two doctors to agree the patient has less than six
months to live, has voluntarily chosen to die and is capable of making
health care decisions. The measure was approved by voters in 1994,
survived legal challenges, and was re-approved in a 1997 referendum.

In his directive, Ashcroft said prescribing, dispensing or administering
federally controlled substances to assist suicide violates the Controlled
Substances Act, passed by Congress in 1970 as part of the nation's war on
drug use.

Many Oregon doctors have been reluctant to assist suicides because of
Ashcroft's order, said Brad Wright, who is with Compassion in Dying, a
group that advocates assisted suicide.

Oregon's U.S. attorney, Michael Mosman, declined to comment on the U.S.
government's position, letting the brief filed Friday by federal lawyers
speak for itself.

"We'll leave any response we've found to their arguments in our (written)
arguments," Mosman said.

According to that brief, Ashcroft was well within the authority provided
him under the Controlled Substances Act to prohibit the use of federally
controlled substances for assisted suicide.

The brief also dismisses the state's assertion of irreparable injury if
Ashcroft's directive is allowed to take effect. As for the terminally ill
patients alleging potential harm under Ashcroft's directive, the brief
concedes their potential injury is "pain and the fear of pain."

Federal lawyers submitted to the court declarations from six doctors
stating that "these patients need not fear living, or dying, in unrelieved
pain" because of modern pain management methods. The patients might be
suffering from inadequately treated pain and unrecognized depression, the
brief states.

The case may finally turn on such legalistic questions as whether the
state has "standing" to seek an injunction in the first place; federal
lawyers say it does not because it will suffer no personal injury under
Ashcroft's directive.