Courts and the End of Life - The Supreme Court Ruling On Physician-assisted Suicide In Oregon

In late 2001 Attorney General John Ashcroft reversed a decision made by his predecessor Janet Reno by asserting that the federal Controlled Substances Act could be used against Oregon physicians who helped patients commit suicide by prescribing lethal drugs. If that were the case, then the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) could disallow the prescription-writing privileges of any Oregon physician who prescribed drugs commonly used for assisted suicide. The possibility would also exist for those physicians to be criminally prosecuted as well. In response, the state of Oregon filed a lawsuit against Ashcroft's decision.

In May 2004 a federal appeals court upheld Oregon's Death with Dignity Act. The decision, by a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, said the Justice Department did not have the power to punish physicians for prescribing medication for the purpose of assisted suicide. The majority opinion stated that Ashcroft overstepped his authority in trying to block enforcement of Oregon's law.

In February 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the Bush administration's challenge of Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law. On January 17, 2006, the Supreme Court let stand Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law. The High Court held that the Controlled Substances Act "does not allow the Attorney General to prohibit doctors from prescribing regulated drugs for use in physician-assisted suicide under state law permitting the procedure." Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy stated that both Ashcroft and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales did not have the power to override the Oregon physician-assisted suicide law. Kennedy also added that it should not be the attorney general who determines what is a "legitimate medical purpose" for the administration of drugs, because the job description for the attorney general does not include making health and medical policy.