WASHINGTON — Oregon’s one-of-a-kind law allowing doctor-assisted suicide moved toward the ultimate legal test Nov. 9 when the U.S. Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision that upheld the law.
In its filing, which was expected, the department argued that Oregon usurped the Controlled Substances Act by permitting doctors to prescribe lethal doses of pain-killing drugs. Assisted suicide is not a “legitimate medical purpose” of the drugs, it said.
The U.S. Supreme Court typically takes about six weeks to review and decide whether to accept cases. If it rejects the petition, the Oregon law would remain in effect and could be blocked only by an act of Congress.
The legal dispute between Oregon and the Justice Department began Nov. 9, 2001. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who announced his resignation this Nov. 9, adopted an interpretation of the federal drug law declaring that “prescribing, dispensing or administering” controlled drugs for terminally ill patients was illegal.
Oregon has prevailed at each step as the case, known as Ashcroft vs. Oregon, worked its way through federal courts. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals again rejected Ashcroft’s interpretation in May, leaving the Supreme Court as the department’s last resort. During the six years since the Oregon law took effect, 171 Oregonians have died by doctor-assisted suicide.
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