Brief: Care for the dying improves when assisted suicide prohibited

Published: 2005-05-13

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Legitimate care of dying people is advanced when ethics and law forbid doctors to help patients take their own lives, argue several state and national Catholic organizations and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in a brief to the Supreme Court. The amicus or friend-of-the-court brief in Gonzales vs. Oregon argues that the U.S. attorney general was correct in concluding that assisted suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose and in ordering that the federal Controlled Substances Act be used to prosecute doctors who prescribe lethal doses of medication. The Supreme Court will review a May 2004 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said former Attorney General John Ashcroft's directive violated the state of Oregon's constitutionally protected authority to regulate medical conduct. The case will be heard in the term that starts in October. Oregon is the only state in which physician-assisted suicide is legal.

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