Death with Dignity National Center Teleconference to Provide Expert Commentary on the Gonzales v. Oregon Supreme Court Ruling

Win or lose in the high court, the group that wrote and defended Oregon�s physician-assisted dying law will take the death with dignity movement to the next level.

Jan. 10, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Robert C. Kenneth by e-mail, or call (503) 228-4415.

Call 800-270-1153
(Ask for the Death with Dignity Press Conference)

WHEN: The day of the Supreme Court decision
TIME: 12:00 Noon – Pacific Time / 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time
WHAT: Call-in press conference
WHO: Legal and medical experts and the spouse of a patient who used the Oregon law

Press Conference Moderator

PEG SANDEEN, MSW, Executive Director, Death with Dignity National Center, is a native Iowan, with a master's degree in Social Work from the University of Iowa. Sandeen is an experienced social worker, specializing in issues related to terminal illness and end-of-life processes. Sandeen has been a case manager with the AIDS Project of Iowa and has done volunteer work with Hospice of North Iowa and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. As a result of her extensive exploration of complex ethical, legal and medical issues related to social work, Sandeen was named 2002 Price Fellow in HIV Prevention Leadership by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In her professional capacities, as well as through personal loss, Sandeen has felt firsthand how legal and medical interaction affects people's lives in both positive and negative ways. As a result, her scholarly and professional efforts have increasingly focused on health-related ethical concerns, particularly end-of-life decisions, privacy issues and mental health. Sandeen joined the DDNC in March 2005. (Portland, OR)

Press Conference Spokespeople

ELI D. STUTSMAN, JD, co-authored the Oregon Death with Dignity Law. He is DDNC Board Member and a practicing attorney in Portland, Oregon. He served as the lead political and legal strategist during the 1994 campaign to pass the Oregon Death with Dignity law and again during the 1997 campaign to defeat a legislatively inspired repeal effort. Stutsman successfully defended the Death with Dignity law in the first federal court challenge, Lee v. State of Oregon, spanning 1994 to 1997 and prevailed against the U.S. Attorney General and the Drug Enforcement Administration in the 2004 case of Oregon v. Ashcroft, heard in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Stutsman represented a pharmacist against the Attorney General in Gonzales v. Oregon, which the U.S. Supreme Court heard October 5, 2005. Stutsman co-founded Oregon Right to Die, the political action committee that passed the Oregon Death with Dignity Act into law. He is also the founding president of the Oregon Death with Dignity Legal Defense and Education Center and the Oregon Death with Dignity Political Action Fund. (Portland, OR)

TIMOTHY E. QUILL, MD is Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry and Medical Humanities at the University of Rochester (New York) where he directs the Center for Palliative Care and Clinical Ethics and is a practicing palliative care physician and a DDNC Board Member. Quill has lectured widely and published numerous articles, including a 1991 New England Journal of Medicine article about "Diane," a dying patient who requested assistance in dying. Quill is the author of four books, Physician Assisted Dying: The Case for Palliative Care and Patient Choice (Johns Hopkins University Press, co-edited with Margaret Battin), Caring for Patients at the End of Life: Facing an Uncertain Future Together (Oxford University Press), A Midwife Through the Dying Process, Stories of Healing and Hard Choices at the End of Life (Johns Hopkins University Press), and Death and Dignity: Making Choices and Taking Charge (W.W. Norton). He was the lead physician plaintiff in the New York State legal case challenging the law prohibiting physician aid in dying -- Quill v. Vacco. (Rochester, NY)

PETER RASMUSSEN, MD, is a respondent in the Supreme Court case Gonzales v. Oregon and is an Oregon physician with more than 30 years' experience practicing medicine. He received his MD from the University of Illinois in 1971 and completed his medical residency at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. Dr. Rasmussen was a Fellow in Medical Oncology at the University of Miami, School of Medicine from 1978 to 1980. He has extensive background in internal medicine, medical oncology and hospice and palliative medicine. Dr. Rasmussen has prescribed medication, under the guidelines of the Oregon Death with Dignity Law, to persons with terminal illness.

NORA MILLER, whose late husband, Rick Miller, availed himself of the Oregon law in 1999, after a battle with terminal lung cancer. (Tucson, AZ)

Win or Lose Scenarios

A Supreme Court ruling against Oregon's Death with Dignity Law would represent a victory for former Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Bush Administration, who have increasingly thrust themselves into the private lives of American citizens. It would be a crushing defeat for the people of Oregon and the death with dignity movement throughout the United States, signaling a significant shift from the traditional distribution of power among the state governments toward the federal government's increasingly centralized power. A negative ruling could effectively nullify Oregon's law and give federal agents unprecedented power to investigate and prosecute physicians and pharmacists who have been practicing legally and ethically under the Oregon law. This would have a chilling effect on Oregon's and the nation's medical communities and would reverse years of progress in improving palliative and end-of-life care. The DDNC would actively pursue the next steps to ensure the ability of terminally-ill persons to control their own end-of-life care.

A Supreme Court ruling in favor of Oregon's Death with Dignity Law would validate Oregon's Death with Dignity law and prohibit federal agents from investigating and prosecuting physicians and pharmacists who practice ethically and legally under the Oregon law. A positive opinion would allow advances in palliative and end-of-life care to continue. A favorable ruling would permit other states to move forward in replicating Oregon's landmark law, and the DDNC would actively support the states most likely to enact death with dignity laws, either through the state legislatures or through citizen initiatives. The DDNC would also keep a close eye on opponents in Washington and meet head-on any efforts in Congress to trump the federal courts and the people of Oregon.

What is the Death with Dignity National Center?

The Death with Dignity National Center is the leader in the death with dignity movement, based on its development, implementation and defense of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act. Since 1994, the DDNC has successfully led the legal and political defense of the Oregon law and has gained national stature by supporting initiatives in other states where citizens have voiced interest in passing laws similar to Oregon's.

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