Administration Seeks to Block Assisted Suicide

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The New York Sun

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court on yesterday to block the nation’s only law allowing doctors to help terminally ill patients die more quickly.


The appeal from Attorney General John Ashcroft had been expected since May, when a lower court ruled the federal government could not punish Oregon doctors who prescribed lethal doses of federally controlled drugs.


The appeal came on the day Mr. Ashcroft’s resignation was announced at the White House. Scott Swenson, executive director of the advocacy group Death with Dignity, called it “Ashcroft’s parting shot from the far right at the people of Oregon.”


Oregon voters approved the law, called the Death With Dignity Act, in 1997.Since 1998, more than 170 people have used it to end their lives. Most had cancer. The Bush administration has argued that assisted suicide is not a “legitimate medical purpose” and that doctors take an oath to heal patients, not help them die.


Oregon’s law lets patients with fewer than six months to live request a lethal dose of drugs after two doctors confirm the diagnosis and determine the person’s mental competence to make the request.


Paul Clement, acting solicitor general, said in the appeal that the law conflicts with the federal government’s powers. The attorney general’s conclusion that doctors should not be allowed to treat patients with lethal doses of drugs “is the position maintained by 49 states, the federal government and leading associations of the medical profession,” he told justices.


The Supreme Court probably will decide early next year whether it will review the case.


The New York Sun

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