Disability Groups Claim Oregon Assisted Suicide Law Puts Lives At Risk
WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 19, 2005-- A dozen leading disability groups have filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court opposing Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law in a case to be heard this fall.
The state is challenging former Attorney General John Ashcroft's interpretation of the federal Controlled Substances Act as banning doctors from prescribing lethal doses of drugs to patients seeking help to take their own lives. Ashcroft said prescribing a drug with death as the goal is not a legitimate use of that drug.