Assisted-Suicide Law Gets Key Victory

Beginning of article

A RECENT Supreme Court decision that upholds Oregon's landmark law permitting doctor-assisted suicides does not end the nationwide ethical and legal debate on such suicides.

The Court did not deal with the constitutionality of the state law. But in a 6-3 decision announced January 17, the justices sided with the state and against the authority of the U.S. attorney general, who had sought to prevent doctors from prescribing life-ending drugs for terminally iii patients.

The attorney general "is not authorized to make a rule declaring illegitimate a medical standard for care and treatment of patients that is specifically authorized under state law," wrote Justice …