Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft lost a major round Wednesday in his attempt to block Oregon's assisted-suicide law, as a federal appeals court panel ruled that his efforts exceeded his authority.
Since Oregon's so-called Death With Dignity law went into effect in 1997, 171 people -- most of them with cancer -- have used the law to hasten their deaths, according to the state's Department of Health Services.
Ashcroft, who began campaigning against Oregon's law when he was a U.S. senator from Missouri, tried to block it in November 2001 by issuing an order aimed at doctors. The order said physicians who dispensed lethal barbiturates to patients under Oregon's law would be violating the federal statute designed to restrict narcotics trafficking and illegal diversion of drugs.
Under that policy, the Justice Department would have been able to go to court to strip doctors who assisted in suicides of their right to prescribe medicine.
That effort by Ashcroft "far exceeds the scope of his authority under federal law," Judge Richard A. Tallman wrote in the opinion for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Ashcroft's "unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide" and is "unlawful and unenforceable," Tallman wrote.
The 9th Circuit is known for its liberal opinions and has frequently been reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court on high-profile issues.
But in this case Tallman, a former federal prosecutor appointed to the court by President Clinton, is generally considered one of the appeals court's more conservative members.
Moreover, the Supreme Court considered assisted-suicide cases from two states in the late 1990s, ultimately upholding Oregon's right to enact its law, so the justices may have little desire to revisit the issue, legal analysts said.
In one of those cases, the high court said that "the earnest and profound debate" around the country "about the morality, legality and practicality of physician-assisted suicide" should be left to state lawmakers.
Oregon is the only state to have enacted a physician-assisted suicide law. Many others, including California, ban the practice.
In order to invoke the law and obtain the lethal barbiturates, a patient must demonstrate to two physicians that he has no more than six months to live. Doctors have to be convinced that a patient is mentally competent to make the decision, and the patient must administer the medicine to himself.
