Pubdate: Wed, 21 Nov 2001
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2001 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.sjmercury.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Leonard Pitts Jr.

ONLY THE DYING KNOW THEIR CHOICE

You'd think John Ashcroft would have better things to do than pick on sick 
people.

I mean, what with anthrax in the mail and terrorists on the loose, I find 
it incredible that he has the time -- not to mention the inclination. 
Specifically, he went gunning earlier this month for the state of Oregon's 
Death With Dignity Act. The act, twice approved by voters, allows a 
terminally ill patient to seek a doctor's help in ending his or her life. 
Two physicians must first agree that the patient has less than six months 
to live. The patient must also be certified mentally competent to make that 
decision.

Ashcroft ordered Drug Enforcement Agency officials to crack down on doctors 
who dispense controlled substances with the aim of ending a patient's life. 
That, he said, is not a "legitimate medical purpose." A federal judge has 
since issued a restraining order and the dispute is headed for a legal 
showdown today.

Ashcroft ought to reconsider. His order is intrusive and offensive. And I 
say this as a less-than-staunch supporter of physician-assisted suicide.

Frankly, it's hard to imagine the circumstances under which I might decide 
to end my own life. I believe you must always leave room for miracles. And 
that life is always preferable to death.

But the thing is, it's easy to say that when your health is good. Would I 
still say it in the end stages of a terminal illness, drifting in a 
universe of agony as unbearable as it was unending? Would I say it if life 
became a torment and death a release?

I like to think I would. But I don't know. None of us can ever truly knows 
how we would respond in such a circumstance until, God forbid, we are in 
it. And if I can't say for sure what I would do if I were there, how can I 
presume to decide what you must do when you are? That takes more gall than 
I can muster.

The attorney general suffers no such failing. To the contrary, the man who 
once promised not to use the law to enforce his personal beliefs is 
cheerfully using the law to enforce his personal beliefs. This, despite the 
fact that his political party -- the GOP -- preaches a gospel of 
less-intrusive government and declares that people ought to be left alone 
to decide most things for themselves.

Apparently, that holds true only if the people decide as the government wishes.

His rationalizing about the proper use of controlled substances aside, it's 
hard to see where Ashcroft's order upholds the Constitution, protects the 
safety of others, validates any worthwhile principle or, indeed, serves any 
interest beyond putting the force of law behind his unease with 
physician-assisted suicide. I don't begrudge him the unease. Many 
reasonable people certainly share it. But unease alone is no basis for him 
to wedge himself into a question already decided by Oregon voters.

I'm reminded of what was, for me, the most horrific image of Sept. 11: the 
people jumping. Some holding hands, some all alone, they stepped from 
burning skyscrapers and plunged toward death on the sidewalk below.

I can never know what they saw or felt that was so awful that this became 
the preferred alternative. I do know that, appalling as it was, there was 
also something in the act of suicide under those conditions that was 
defiant and even life-affirming.

Think about it. Death was an imminent certainty, imposed upon them by 
factors beyond their control. And they seized back their own destiny. They 
would decide the moment and manner of their destruction.

I bet most of us watching instinctively understood why they did what they 
did. I suspect even the attorney general would not reproach them for it.

So why reproach people in Oregon who do the same thing?

Fact is, Ashcroft is no better equipped than I to make end-of-life choices 
for someone else. Neither of us can say when someone else's pain is too 
much to bear. Neither of us can determine when it's time for someone else 
to let go of that slim reed, hope. Neither of us can decide.

And neither of us has any business trying.
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MAP posted-by: Beth