Free Euthanasia Essays: The Church and Assisted Suicide :: Free Euthanasia Essay

Church groups wrote to each(prenominal) members of Congress urging support for the Lethal Drug Abuse saloon Act of 1998. Excerpts follow   Swift enactment of this legislation is necessary receivable to a seriously flawed ruling by U.S. Attorney world(a) Janet Reno... The ruling asserts that Oregon, by rescinding its own civil and criminal penalties for assisting the self-destructions of certain perseverings, has set up assisted suicide as a legitimate medical praxis within Oregons borders -- and that the national government lacks any basis for disagreeing with this judgment. Under this ruling, however, federal official intervention by the Drug Enforcement Administration in Oregon whitethorn well be warranted in cases where a physician fails to comply with bring up procedures regarding how and when to assist suicides. Federal law will protect the lives only of those deemed by the state to be ineligible for assisted suicide.   The Oregon assisted suicide law, in and of itself, poses an enormous threat to human dignity and to equal surety of all citizens under law. While continuing to forbid assistance in the suicide of a young and healthy person, this law rescinds criminal, civil and master copy penalties for a doctor who assists the suicide of someone he or she believes in good credit to have six months to live. Ironically, once this good faith judgment is made it will never be proved wrong, because the patient will be dead from a drug overdose in a few days. Oregons discriminatory policy stigmatizes an entire class of compromising patients as having lives not worth protecting. For this reason it has been found unconstitutional by the only federal court to review Oregons law on the merits. chit-chat Lee v. Oregon, 891 F.Supp. 1429 (D. Or. 1995), vacated on other grounds, 107 F.3d 1382 (9th Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 118 S. Ct. 328 (1997).   Current federal policy demands an increase penalty when the victim of a crime is seriously ill or otherwise unusually vulnerable (United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual, p. 227, 3A1.1). How, then, can the federal government promptly adjust its penalties under the Controlled Substances Act to confirm and enforce Oregons discriminatory policy on assisted suicide -- where the vulnerable condition of the victim turns a crime into a legitimate medical practice?   Any states rights personal line of credit on this issue is contradicted by the plain language and intent of the federal Controlled Substances Act.