U.S. renews fight against assisted-suicide law
SAN FRANCISCO – The Bush administration asked a federal appeals court here Monday to reconsider a May decision upholding Oregon’s assisted suicide law.
The administration wants the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to set aside its ruling backing the nation’s only law allowing doctors to assist in hastening the death of patients. The Justice Department says the case, originally decided by a 2-1 vote, should be reheard with an 11-judge panel. Thirteen of the circuit’s 25 full-time judges must agree to a rehearing, and they are rarely granted.
The three-judge circuit panel in May ruled that, under the state’s voter-approved Death With Dignity Act, Attorney General John Ashcroft cannot sanction or hold Oregon doctors criminally liable for prescribing overdoses.
The panel said the states were free to adopt such laws, while the administration claims federal drug laws, namely the Controlled Substances Act, prohibit doctors from dispensing medication to end a patient’s life.
“Under specified conditions, the CSA allows registered physicians to prescribe controlled substances for legitimate medical purposes in the usual course of professional practice,” the Justice Department said in its petition. “The attorney general recently issued an interpretive rule clarifying that assisting suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose under the CSA.”
The government added that assisting suicide violates the Hippocratic Oath.
Eli Stutsman, an attorney representing a pharmacist and doctor in the case, said the federal government has no authority over Oregon’s assisted suicide law. “There is simply no basis in the construct or intent of federal law that gives the federal government the authority to regulate the practice of medicine or establish the standard of care in the states.”
The latest legal wrangling stems from April 2002, when a federal judge in Portland blocked the Justice Department from threatening to punish doctors, for example by pressing criminal charges or stripping them of their federal licenses to dispense medication, if they assist suicides.
U.S. District Judge Robert Jones had ruled that the Controlled Substances Act – the federal law declaring what drugs doctors may prescribe – does not give the federal government the power to say what is a legitimate medical practice. The panel of the 9th Circuit agreed.
Oregon voters first approved the act in 1994 and overwhelmingly affirmed it again three years later when it was returned to the ballot following a failed legal challenge that stalled its implementation.
The law allows terminally ill patients with less than six months to live to request a lethal dose of drugs after two doctors confirm the diagnosis and determine the patient to be mentally competent to make the request.
Since 1998, at least 171 people have used the law to end their lives, according to state records. Most of them suffered from cancer.
By circuit rules, there is no timeline for the court to respond to the government’s petition.