Appeal court upholds Oregon's assisted suicide law
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《英国医生杂志》
Florida
A federal appeal court in San Francisco has ruled that doctors in Oregon can continue to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to mentally competent, terminally ill patients, without facing federal prosecution.
The ruling said that the US attorney general, John Ashcroft, cannot sanction or hold doctors criminally liable for prescribing—but not administering—overdoses under Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, which was approved by the state in 1994 and reaffirmed in 1997. The act allows terminally ill patients with less than six months to live to request a lethal dose of drugs, provided that two doctors confirm the diagnosis.
Since 1998 at least 171 people have used Oregon's law, the only one like it in the United States, to end their lives. Most people had cancer.
The attorney general's "Ashcroft directive," issued in 2001, says that assisted suicide serves no "legitimate medical purpose" and bars doctors from prescribing lethal overdoses of drugs listed under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970. It threatens doctors with criminal penalties and possible suspension or revocation of their licences.
But in 2002 a federal judge in Portland, Oregon, ruled against the Justice Department, after a doctor, a pharmacist, several terminally ill patients, the state of Oregon, and a group called Compassion in Dying of Oregon filed suit to block the directive in federal court.
The recent judicial ruling, which found two to one in favour of the Oregon law, said that the attorney general may not exercise control over an area of law traditionally reserved for state authority, such as regulation of medical care, unless authorisation by Congress is "unmistakably clear."(Fred Charatan)
A federal appeal court in San Francisco has ruled that doctors in Oregon can continue to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to mentally competent, terminally ill patients, without facing federal prosecution.
The ruling said that the US attorney general, John Ashcroft, cannot sanction or hold doctors criminally liable for prescribing—but not administering—overdoses under Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, which was approved by the state in 1994 and reaffirmed in 1997. The act allows terminally ill patients with less than six months to live to request a lethal dose of drugs, provided that two doctors confirm the diagnosis.
Since 1998 at least 171 people have used Oregon's law, the only one like it in the United States, to end their lives. Most people had cancer.
The attorney general's "Ashcroft directive," issued in 2001, says that assisted suicide serves no "legitimate medical purpose" and bars doctors from prescribing lethal overdoses of drugs listed under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970. It threatens doctors with criminal penalties and possible suspension or revocation of their licences.
But in 2002 a federal judge in Portland, Oregon, ruled against the Justice Department, after a doctor, a pharmacist, several terminally ill patients, the state of Oregon, and a group called Compassion in Dying of Oregon filed suit to block the directive in federal court.
The recent judicial ruling, which found two to one in favour of the Oregon law, said that the attorney general may not exercise control over an area of law traditionally reserved for state authority, such as regulation of medical care, unless authorisation by Congress is "unmistakably clear."(Fred Charatan)