Federal District Judge Robert Jones is expected to rule today whether terminally ill Oregonians can end their life with a doctor’s assistance, and advocates from both sides say they will appeal the decision within the month.
Oregon’s Death with Dignity Law was challenged Nov. 6, 2001, when U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft wrote a memo stating he would use the Controlled Substances Act to prosecute physicians prescribing lethal doses of drugs. Oregon is the only state in the nation that permits physician-assisted suicide.
The state and two groups in favor of assisted suicide obtained restraining orders on Ashcroft’s action from a Portland federal court; those orders are expected to expire pending a ruling by Judge Jones today.
Both advocates and opponents of the law are confident the case will be decided in their favor, even if it has to be appealed.
“I don’t know which way it will be ruled (in federal court in Portland), but I’m confident the opinion of the Department of Justice will be upheld,” even if it has to go to the Supreme Court, said Dr. Greg Hamilton, president of the right-to-life group
Compassion in Dying.
“The Supreme Court is on record as being suspect to the whole idea of assisted suicide,” he added.
But Eli Stutsman, lead attorney for Oregon Death with Dignity and the lawyer who defended the law after Oregon voters passed it in 1994 and again in 1997, said he doesn’t expect the case to reach the Supreme Court.
“The (U.S.) attorney general is not empowered to regulate the practice of medicine in the state,” he said.
Stutsman said he is confident Jones will not only rule in favor of Oregon today, but that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will uphold the law as well.
“I don’t think there will be anything for the Supreme Court to fix,” he said.
Jones is scheduled to issue an opinion at 9 a.m. today, after which the loser has 30 days to file an appeal in San Francisco.