Oregon law on doctor-assisted suicide upheld

An Oregon law sanctioning physician-assisted suicide, the only one of its kind in the United States, was upheld yesterday by the Supreme Court in an embarrassing defeat for the Bush administration, which has spent the past five years trying to knock the law down.

The high court justices voted 6-3 in Oregon's favour, saying the state had every right to pass such a law without federal interference.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing the majority opinion, said former Attorney General John Ashcroft's attempt to claim a higher authority and revoke the prescription-writing licenses of participating doctors was "both beyond his expertise and incongruous with the statutory purposes and design".

Oregon voters have twice approved the assisted suicide law, which requires two doctors to confirm that terminally ill patients wanting to take advantage of it are capable of making the decision on their own.

Since 1997, when the Death With Dignity Act was first passed, more than 200 people have used it to end their lives.

The Clinton administration raised no objection, but the ardently religious Mr Ashcroft turned it into a personal cause - even after the 11 September attacks when his office was supposedly focussed on tracking down possible al Qaeda cells in the United States.

The case was marked by a deep political irony, since conservatives usually uphold the cause of self-determination by individual states and liberals more commonly grant greater leeway to federal authority.

In this case, it was the conservatives on the Supreme Court, including new Chief Justice John Roberts, who sided with the Bush administration, and the more moderate justices who made up the pro-Oregon majority.

- INDEPENDENT