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Supreme Court and Oregon Assisted
Suicide
PBS.org
September 30, 2005
BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now that John Roberts has been confirmed by the
Senate as Chief Justice of the United States, he'll be presiding over the
Supreme Court's new term, which begins Monday. One of the first cases the court
will hear is a challenge to Oregon's Death with Dignity law permitting people
who are terminally ill to take their own lives, under certain rules. Tim
O'Brien reports.
TIM O'BRIEN: Robert Schwartz, who had waged a long and painful battle
against the AIDS virus, finally decided to surrender. After an emotional
farewell to family and friends, Schwartz ended his own life by swallowing 90
capsules of Seconal, a lethal drug prescribed by his own doctor. He died within
minutes.
Mr. SCHWARTZ: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
...
Photo of bottles of pills O'BRIEN: It was all legal under Oregon's Death
with Dignity Act, which allows doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to
terminally ill patients in carefully defined circumstances -- legal, but still
controversial.
UNIDENTIFIED PRIEST: In the name of God our Creator ...
O'BRIEN: Conservatives in Congress had long opposed the Oregon law, among
them, John Ashcroft, then a senator from Missouri. When Ashcroft later became
Attorney General, he formally challenged the law, arguing it conflicted with
the Federal Controlled Substances Act that dangerous drugs like Seconal may
only be used for a "legitimate medical purpose," and suicide, concluded
Ashcroft, "is not a legitimate medical purpose."
Hardy Myers is the Attorney General of Oregon:
HARDY MYERS (Attorney General, Oregon): I think the respect for states'
rights kind of is stronger or weaker depending upon whether the action the
state is taking is one the particular administration in question likes.
O'BRIEN: Ashcroft expressly reversed the policy of the previous
administration and his predecessor, Attorney General Janet Reno. Reno had said,
"There is no evidence Congress ... intended to displace the states as the
primary regulators of the medical profession."
Photo of HARDY MYERS Mr. MYERS: We've got a straightforward effort to
regulate the doctor-patient relationship at the most intimate level because of
the intention of the use of the drugs. Now that is bringing the federal
government into the very -- the most foundational level of the practice of
medicine.
O'BRIEN: While Oregon argues Washington has no business dictating how
medicine is practiced in this state, the Bush administration says the state's
Death with Dignity Act violates federal drug laws. What seems to be driving
this case, though, is not so much that legal question, but rather the moral
question: Is it right?
GREG YADEN: These are the antibiotics and antivirals; I take these in the
morning and in the afternoon -- those are the two that I take twice a day --
the rest of these are ...
O'BRIEN: Fifty-nine-year-old Greg Yaden takes about a dozen different drugs
daily, ever since an unforgettable afternoon last year when he passed out in a
supermarket checkout line. Healthy all his life, Yaden was diagnosed with acute
myologic leukemia.
Photo of GREG YADEN Mr. YADEN: It's destroyed my bone marrow. I have
absolutely no -- certainly no, no immune system. Based on science, based on
medicine, I have absolutely no chance.
O'BRIEN: Yaden says he wants to live but knows he will soon die. After
consultation with his doctors and his family, he applied for and was granted a
prescription that could hasten and ease the way.
Mr. YADEN: No one has ever tried to talk me out of this. No one. They've all
been very supportive, but I've also been real open with them so that -- you
know, "I'm not doing this because I'm depressed, I'm not doing this because I'm
tired of living. I'm not doing this -- the only reason is that I'm dying
anyway. And if I can have a little dignity at the end. ..." And they all agreed
with me, so we're all doing pretty good. We're all doing pretty good.
O'BRIEN: To qualify for lethal drugs under the Oregon law, two doctors
must certify that the patient is mentally competent; is suffering from a
terminal disease; [and] has expressed a wish to accelerate the dying process.
The patient must be at least 18, a resident of Oregon, and there's a 15-day
waiting period.
Under the law, the doctor may prescribe the drugs but cannot assist;
patients must be strong enough to take the medication themselves.
Proponents of the Oregon law like Barbara Coombs Lee insist the resulting
death is anything but "physician assisted" -- anything but suicide.
Photo of BARBARA COOMBS LEE BARBARA COOMBS LEE (Co-CEO and President,
Compassion & Choices): Suicide is very, very much a misnomer. And it is
pejorative. It's demeaning; it's really insulting to people who are dying of
cancer -- who are facing a very grim death, who do not have the choice to live,
who would take that choice gladly if it were given to them, who are merely
trying to choose the least worst death -- to call them suicide.
RICHARD DOERFLINGER (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): You're choosing
between the only life you have and death, and it's still suicide. It's still
killing yourself.
O'BRIEN: The choice of words is important. A Gallup poll last spring showed
that 75 percent of Americans support allowing a doctor to assist in the death
of a patient who is suffering from an incurable disease and wants to die, but
support drops to 58 percent if the term "doctor-assisted suicide" is used in
the question.
Whatever you call it -- and notwithstanding the strict requirements of the
Oregon law -- a broad range of religious groups say it is morally wrong.
Photo of RICHARD DOERFLINGER Mr. DOERFLINGER: For society to amend its laws
to say, "This is a special case where we're going to say taking your life is
socially acceptable and a good thing [and] we're going to help you do it" is
something that demeans all of us.
O'BRIEN: The Bush administration does not oppose use of the drugs to
alleviate pain, only to terminate life.
Should it persuade the Supreme Court that Oregon's Death with Dignity Act
must give way to federal drug laws, doctors who prescribe life-ending drugs
could lose their prescription-writing privileges and could even face criminal
prosecution.
Dr. PETER RASMUSSEN (Oncologist): As an oncologist, if I couldn't prescribe
narcotics to my patients, I basically couldn't practice.
O'BRIEN: Dr. Peter Rasmussen, who says he has prescribed life-ending
medication for a dozen patients, rejects the Bush administration argument that
he's violating the physicians' Hippocratic Oath to do no harm.
Photo of Dr. PETER RASMUSSEN Dr. RASMUSSEN: For an oncologist, if somebody
dies but dies well -- with good control over symptoms, in the setting of their
home, with their family, where they have remained in control of their lives
until the very end -- then that's a good death. And that is something to
celebrate. For a medical oncologist, that's a success.
O'BRIEN: The American Medical Association, which has a long-standing policy
against euthanasia, has not taken a position in this current case.
Roughly a third of the patients who have obtained the prescriptions have not
taken them. Over the seven-year history of the Oregon law, 326 lethal
prescriptions have been written, but only 208 patients have ended their lives
with the drugs.
Ms. COOMBS LEE: I don't like to say they change their minds because they
never said, "I want to take this medication." It was always conditional. It was
always, "I want this medication available if and when I am in my worse
nightmare."
O'BRIEN: For most of us, death is never easy to accept. That includes Greg
Yaden, who still has difficult moments facing his future.
The court's decision is not expected before next spring -- more time than
the doctors say Greg Yaden has left.
Mr. YADEN: Keep the faith. ...
O'BRIEN: For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I'm Tim O'Brien in Salem,
Oregon.
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