
DATE: Wednesday, October 15, 1997           TAG: 9710150520

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:  130 lines

CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: * A bill passed by the Virginia General Assembly this year would make physician-assisted suicide a civil offense, not a felony as was reported in a Page 1 box Wednesday. The bill must be passed again next year to become law. Correction published , Thursday, October 16, 1997, pa.A2 * OREGON'S ASSISTED SUICIDE LAW CAN PROCEED THE SUPREME COURT HAS REFUSED TO HEAR THE FIRST CHALLENGE TO THE NEW ACT.

The Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for the nation's only law permitting doctor-assisted suicide to take effect in Oregon.

The justices, without comment or dissent, refused to hear the first challenge to Oregon's Death With Dignity Act.

While the court cleared the way for the Oregon measure, the issue is far from resolved.

The justices' action came just a day before Oregon voters were to be mailed ballots asking whether they want to repeal the measure.

Although the highest court's order was not a decision and sets no national precedent, it removed the last legal hurdle to implementing the assisted-suicide measure.

The justices ruled in June that terminally ill Americans have no constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide. But those decisions, upholding bans on assisted suicide in New York and Washington state, did not bar states from letting doctors prescribe deadly drugs for mentally competent but terminally ill patients who want to die.

A 1994 Oregon measure did just that, but it never has taken effect because of court challenges.

Nevertheless, the state's law has played a huge role in the continuing national debate over end-of-life medical decisions.

Most states outlaw assisted suicide.

The Oregon measure had been challenged by two doctors and a terminally ill woman, but a federal appeals court ruled that the three lacked the proper legal standing to sue.

The state Legislature decided this year to ask voters to reconsider the issue. Ballots on a new measure - one that would repeal the 1994 vote - were to be mailed to Oregon voters today and counted Nov. 4.

Lawyers on both sides of the assisted-suicide struggle said Tuesday they doubt there will be enough time for anyone to use the law to commit suicide before the repeal vote is counted. There is a 15-day waiting period for a terminally ill patient to obtain a lethal prescription.

Oregon Solicitor General Virginia L. Linder predicted Tuesday that it would take lower courts a few weeks to formally remove orders blocking the old assisted-suicide law from taking effect. And by that time, the new voter referendum on the issue will have taken place.

Jim Bopp, an anti-abortion lawyer from Terre Haute, Ind., who handled the challenge to the Oregon measure, said it was suitable to have ``the people of Oregon express their view'' before the legal fight continues.

Eli Stutsman, a lawyer for the measure's backers, noted public opinion polls show a 2-1 sentiment against repeal. ``What people are most upset about is that the Legislature would put back on the ballot a law they passed just three years ago,'' he said.

In Oregon, a recent newspaper poll found that six in 10 Oregonians oppose the ballot measure that would repeal the law. The Portland Oregonian reported that a strong majority said terminally ill patients with less than six months to live should be able to end their lives with the help of a physician.

If the original law is not repealed next month, its opponents are likely to file new lawsuits questioning the measure's constitutionality.

The rejection of the Oregon case was the high court's first action on the intensely emotional subject since the June ruling affecting New York and Washington.

Voter approval of the Death With Dignity Act in November 1994 made Oregon the first state to allow a terminally ill, but mentally able, adult to request a prescription for medication ``for the purpose of ending his or her life in a humane and dignified manner.''

Until now, however, court challenges have prevented the law from going into effect.

In Tuesday's action, the Supreme Court did not issue any opinion on the validity of the Oregon law but merely left undisturbed a lower-court ruling that the challengers lacked the ability to sue.

The suit was filed by two doctors opposed to assisted suicide and Janice Elsner, a patient suffering from progressive muscular dystrophy and recurrent depressions that sometimes made her want to end her life. But a San-Francisco based federal appeals panel concluded that the trio's risk of injury was insufficient to justify a suit.

In the unsuccessful petition to the Supreme Court, Bopp, the lawyer for the three challengers, argued that the panel had taken ``the untenable position that persons must be in the throes of suicidal depression and seeking assistance in killing themselves before bringing suit.''

Catholic groups and organizations of disabled people supported Bopp's petition, but the Oregon attorney general's office and the American Civil Liberties Union urged the court to reject it.

``This busy court should not spend its valuable time deciding whether (the) petitioners are entitled to challenge a law that is not only one-of-a-kind, but has not yet - and may never - take effect,'' observed Thomas M. Christ, an ACLU lawyer in Portland, Ore.

In other matters, the court:

Rejected an effort to reinstate California's term-limits law, but the dispute likely will return soon to the nation's highest court.

Agreed to use an Arizona case to decide whether a federal law intended to speed the pace of executions limits claims by death-row inmates that they are insane and cannot legally be killed.

Refused to let Maryland police order all passengers to stay in vehicles stopped for routine traffic violations. Eight months ago, the justices ruled that police nationwide may order all passengers out of cars in such cases.

Let stand an Indiana ruling that says a union contract's arbitration provisions can never nullify an individual worker's right to sue over an employer's alleged discrimination.

Agreed to decide whether Montana and one of its counties must pay the Crow Tribe $58 million in unlawfully collected taxes on coal that was mined on the tribe's reservation. MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by the Associated Press,

Knight-Ridder News Service and the Washington Post. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

IN VIRGINIA

Virginia passed a law earlier this year making it a felony to

assist someone in committing suicide, or to provide the means for

anyone to commit suicide.

Additionally, health-care providers who violate the law will

have their professional licenses permanently revoked.

The law also allows for civil monetary penalties to be pursued

against people assisting in such suicides. KEYWORDS: U.S. SUPREME COURT RULING ASSISTED SUICIDE