c. 1998 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Congressional opponents, joined by Roman Catholic religious leaders, have launched the first volley of an attack on physician-assisted suicide in what could become a lengthy legislative battle over the same issues of morality and personal choice involved in the abortion debate.

The immediate target is the new state law allowing assisted suicide in Oregon, the only one of its kind in the nation.

Attorney General Janet Reno said Friday (June 5) that federal law would not prevent doctors from helping terminally ill patients end their lives.

But within hours of her announcement, powerful members of Congress said they wanted to amend federal law to prevent assisted suicide. First to file a bill was Rep. Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee and one of the House’s staunchest opponents of legal abortion.

“I just think she’s mistaken, her interpretation,” Hyde said of Reno’s opinion.

Hyde is likely to have plenty of support _ including that of Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who said for the first time he would vote for legislation that would void the Oregon assisted-suicide law.

“For me, it’s a moral principle that our law should not artificially prolong or terminate life,” Smith said in an interview. “Those are decisions that should be left to God or nature, however you choose to interpret them.”

And Catholic leaders were quick to weigh in on the issue.

Cardinal James Hickey of the archdiocese of Washington, D.C., accused Reno and the government of advancing the”culture of death by facilitating the suicide of those most in need of our compassion”and he called on Congress to pass legislation similar to that proposed by Hyde.

Richard Doerflinger, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ top adviser on euthanasia issues, said the Justice Department”abdicated its responsibility to protect vulnerable people from deadly harm.”Congress should address this issue quickly, making it clear federally regulated drugs may not be used to assist suicides,”he said.

Hyde’s bill lifts the debate over assisted suicide to the federal level. It could touch off an angry national argument over issues that until now have been most passionately raised in Oregon and in Michigan, where Dr. Jack Kevorkian has assisted in scores of suicides even without the benefit of an empowering statute.

For now, opposition seems to outweigh any congressional support for assisted suicide. More than 200 members of Congress have written to Reno in recent months, urging her to use federal authority to stop doctors from using the Oregon law.

Opponents hope to trump the Oregon law by invoking the federal Controlled Substances Act, which regulates powerful drugs like those used in assisted suicide. Under that law, doctors may prescribe such drugs only for “legitimate medical purposes.”

In November, the chief of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, Thomas Constantine, wrote to Hyde, saying he believed assisted suicide is not a legitimate purpose and doctors prescribing lethal doses of medicine could be punished under the law.

But Constantine, a career law enforcement officer, did not consult Reno before sending his letter. When informed of Constantine’s action, Reno began a review that dragged on until Friday.

Amending the Controlled Substances Act appears to be a relatively easy task. Hyde’s bill would revoke the prescribing privileges of a doctor who gives drugs to a patient for the purpose of aiding a suicide.

“We’ll put it into statute that these controlled substances are not to be used for purposes of assisted suicide,” said Hyde.

At a news conference, four members of the Oregon congressional delegation _ all Democrats _ hailed Reno’s opinion on the Controlled Substances Act. But they also acknowledged the Oregon law could be in jeopardy.

“We’re going to have to work very, very hard,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. “This is a very uphill battle here in Washington, D.C., so far for Oregon to uphold the rights of Oregonians to have death with dignity.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who has led the delegation’s effort to protect the Oregon law, hinted that, if necessary, he would be willing to stage a filibuster on the Senate floor.

“You tell your colleagues that you plan to talk for a long, long, long time on the floor of the United States Senate,” Wyden said.

Wyden said he voted against the assisted suicide law both times it was on the Oregon ballot, in 1994 and in 1997. But he said he objects to federal efforts to undermine the will of Oregon voters.

“There were no grounds for federal officials to superimpose their judgment on an extremely difficult issue in the judgment of the people of Oregon,” Wyden said.

DeFazio also accused Hyde and other Republicans of playing politics with assisted suicide. “They’re for states’ rights if it cuts social programs which they don’t like. But when the people of a state use their authority under the Constitution to do something humane … then they’re not for states’ rights,”he said.

In the Senate, Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles, R-Okla., was expected to introduce a measure similar to Hyde’s House bill on Monday (June 8), a Nickles aide said.

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