Assisted suicide a decision for the states

It's a prickly issue, judges said, but not one that the Justice Dept. can decide.

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. June 14, 2004.

The question of whether physician-assisted suicide is a "legitimate medical practice" remains open to debate but, said a three-judge panel from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft can't be the final arbitrator.

In a 2-1 ruling May 26, the judges reaffirmed that states were responsible for regulating the practice of medicine and not the U.S. Dept. of Justice -- except in cases where Congress provided "unmistakably clear" authorization. The majority said Ashcroft did not have this authorization when he threatened to revoke the licenses to prescribe controlled substances of Oregon doctors who wrote lethal prescriptions as part of the state law allowing assisted suicide.

Dept. of Justice spokesman Charles Miller said no decision had been made regarding what step the Bush administration would take next, but added that it had 45 days to appeal the decision to a larger panel of 9th Circuit appellate judges or 90 days to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Salem, Ore., oncologist and hospice physician Peter Rasmussen, MD, was a plaintiff in the case. He said he hoped the decision would be appealed. "The more times this goes through judicial review, the more solid the foundation of legality becomes," he said.

The justices, however, avoided ruling on the legality of assisted suicide.

"To be perfectly clear, we take no position on the merits or morality of physician-assisted suicide," the ruling states. "We express no opinion on whether the practice is inconsistent with the public interest or constitutes illegitimate medical care. This case is simply about who decides."