Physicians in Oregon can still write prescriptions that terminally ill patients can use to end their lives ­­ for now. Local advocates on both sides of the issue are preparing for a court battle that they say will go all the way to the Supreme Court.
Kevin Neely, spokesman for Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers, said that a temporary restraining order filed last Thursday assures the legality of physician-assisted suicide, as specified in Oregon’s Death with Dignity Law. The order expires on Nov. 20, at which time there will be a hearing in U.S. District Court to determine whether to grant a preliminary injunction that would allow Oregon’s law to function while the case is in court.
Attorney General John Ashcroft brought Oregon’s law into question last week with a memo to the Drug Enforcement Agency that bars physicians from prescribing lethal doses of federally controlled substances.
Derek Humphry, the founder of the Hemlock Society, believes that the case will go all the way to the Supreme Court. Humphry, a resident of Junction City, has founded or been a part of more than 80 chapters of the Hemlock Society and has been advocating physician-assisted suicide since 1980.
“Our goal has always been to help people who are dying at the moment,” Humphry said. The secondary goal of the group is to legalize physician-assisted suicide in all 50 states. Humphry added that the ruling by Ashcroft tramples the rights of Oregonians.
“The Bush administration is on the right wing, and we have known all along that they’d try to neutralize the Oregon law,” he said.
Gayle Atteberry, executive director of Oregon Right to Life and a Eugene resident, says that Ashcroft’s ruling has nothing to do with state’s rights because the federal law that controls substances in the U.S. has been in effect for more than 30 years.
“It was state’s rights that got in the way of a federal rule,” she said. Atteberry also said that Ashcroft’s memo won’t affect doctors’ ability to help terminally ill patients manage their pain.
“Ashcroft went out of his way to assure doctors that the ruling will not affect aggressive pain treatment, even if it accidentally hastens a patient’s death,” Atteberry said.
Her view was disputed by Humphry.
“Even if their intention is known to be good, doctors are bound to be more nervous,” he said.
Brian Terrett, spokesman for PeaceHealth Medical Group, says that physicians with the group haven’t indicated any difficulty prescribing federally controlled pain medication in non-lethal doses as a result of Ashcroft’s ruling.
“If we were seeing that as a problem,” Terrett said, “we’d take whatever steps were necessary.”
Oregon Right to Life believes that the courts will eventually overturn Oregon’s law.
“We will prevail in the long term,” Atteberry said.
Humphry disagreed.
“If we are a free country, if we are a free people,” he said, “we should have the right to choose how we die.”