X-Message-Number: 8726
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 1997 05:01:01 -0700
From: David Brandt-Erichsen <>
Subject: Oregon update - legal confusion

The following wire story was issued by ASSOCIATED PRESS
(Weds Nov 5/97; 5:39 p.m. EST)
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          LAWYERS DEBATE SUICIDE LAW STATUS

          PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Confusion surrounded the question
          Wednesday of whether Oregonians are now free to take
          advantage of the nation's only law allowing
          doctor-assisted suicide.

          Voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly defeated a measure to
          repeal the 1994 law, which allows dying people to
          request lethal prescriptions. There is a 15-day waiting
          period between the request and the prescription.

          With 88 percent of precincts reporting Wednesday, the
          repeal measure drew 629,279 no votes, or 60 percent, to
          421,952 yes votes, or 40 percent.

          Doctors who support the law said they are ready to help
          the terminally ill end their suffering. ``I think there
          are plenty of physicians in Oregon who will be
          supporting the law,'' said Dr. Glenn Gordon of Eugene.

          But opponents said they will file a lawsuit and try to
          persuade a judge to block the law before anyone has a
          chance to use it.

          The law never has been used because of legal challenges,
          and the issues became even murkier Wednesday as
          attorneys debated whether the law had taken effect yet.

          The state attorney general's office said it learned
          Tuesday that the law actually has been in effect since
          Oct. 27, when a federal appeals court threw out a 1994
          injunction.

          But James Bopp, a National Right to Life lawyer who has
          been working to derail the law, said the injunction,
          issued by U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan, would
          remain in effect until Hogan himself lifted it.

          Bopp said the federal appeals court sent the case back
          to Hogan's court after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to
          hear the case in October.

          Hogan refused to say whether the injunction still was in
          effect. He said he could not comment until a hearing set
          for Nov. 25.

          Under the law, an attending physician and a consulting
          physician must agree the patient has an incurable
          disease that will produce death within six months and
          the person is mentally competent to make such a request.

          Oregon's leading advocate of assisted suicide, Barbara
          Coombs Lee, said her organization is not aware yet of
          any patients who want to use the law, and might not hear
          of them in any case.

          ``That's an enormously private matter,'' she said.

          Tuesday's vote was seen as a repudiation of the
          multimillion-dollar campaign waged by the Roman Catholic
          Church and others, including the American Medical
          Association.

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