Last Tuesday, Attorney General John Ashcroft authorized the Drug Enforcement Administration to take punitive action against physicians who prescribe lethal drugs for terminally ill patients?the doctors’ licenses would be suspended. This action, which is being challenged by the state of Oregon, represents a striking lack of compassion and understanding of how physicians help their patients to die and risks making the last days of the terminally ill a time of pain rather than comfort.
Oregon is the only state in which people are allowed to end their own lives with a doctor’s prescription. Under the state’s Death with Dignity Act, a terminally ill patient may take the lethal drugs if two doctors agree the person has less than six months to live and is mentally competent to make the decision to end his or her life. Oregonians approved the act in 1994, making theirs the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide.
Two years later, amid legal challenges and debate, the 60 percent of the state’s voters reaffirmed their previous decision. Oregon voters have proven that they support the Death with Dignity Act. Ashcroft’s decision was a heavy-handed insult to Oregon and its government that have regulated assisted dying carefully and responsibly for four years.
The Attorney General’s action also threatens the essence of the hospice care that in recent years has allowed so many terminal patients to die at home, with doctors and nurses easing the passage through the considerate use of pain medications. Ashcroft’s statement that assisted suicide is not a “legitimate medical purpose” for prescribing or dispensing medication is far from the truth.
Ashcroft cannot use the federal-controlled substances law to justify his decision. The law was intended to prevent illegal trafficking of drugs when it was passed three decades ago but not to interfere with states’ abilities to regulate the practice of medicine. The Attorney General’s new policy grossly exceeds his authority.
Ashcroft’s policy infringes upon the democratic decision-making of Oregonians. It also endangers what has become a compassionate mode of dying throughout the United States.
