We are now at a critical phase of the struggle.... [You must] communicate rapidly with members of Congress to ask their support for the Nickles-Hyde Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 1998. What would the pro-life movement have given [for] the realistic opportunity, in the 1970s, to stop abortion's legalization just as it was getting started? How many millions of lives might we have saved?
We now have the briefly available prospect of stopping euthanasia in the United States before it becomes entrenched....
What will history say of this generation of pro-life Americans if we fail to do all we can, in the next crucial weeks and months, to avert so grave and irremediable a tragedy?
--Dr. David O'Steen, executive director of NRLC, quoted in NRL News, June 9, 1998
ANOTHER OUTRAGE BY THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION
The one persistent theme in the Clinton Administration is its unwavering support for the anti-life agenda. On his first day in office, Bill Clinton rescinded established pro-life policies and proclaimed that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare" -- and since then has done everything to make abortion routine, institutionalize it, and use the resources and power of the government to spread the practice throughout the world.
On the question of physician-assisted suicide the pattern is repeating itself. On November 5, 1997, the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Thomas Constantine, sensibly ruled that the Controlled Substances Act prohibited the use of controlled drugs for euthanasia and assisted suicide. Because such a lethal misuse of controlled drugs serves no "legitimate medical purpose," physicians would face the loss of their DEA license.
Seven months later, on June 5, 1998, Attorney General Janet Reno did what we now have come to expect of the Clinton Administration: She ignored the letter of the law and overruled the DEA by allowing federally controlled drugs to be used in physician-assisted suicide. Naturally, the Justice Department wants you to believe that, in spite of all that, the Clinton Administration maintains its "long-standing" opposition to physician-assisted suicide.
PRO-LIFE LEADERS ACT TO STOP ASSISTED SUICIDE
Pro-life leaders in Congress were prepared. That same day, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Il.) introduced the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 1998 in order to overturn Reno's outrageous ruling. Soon after a companion bill was introduced in the Senate by Majority Whip Sen. Don Nickles (R-Ok.)
Congressman Hyde explained that the bill would in effect reinstate the DEA policy to limit the use of controlled drugs to "legitimate medical goals such as relief of pain and suffering. Medicine is and ought to be a healing force, not a killing one." The Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act mandates the loss of a physician's DEA registration if the physician prescribes federally controlled drugs "with a purpose of causing, or assisting in causing, the suicide or euthanasia of any individual." It does not prohibit the use of such drugs to alleviate pain.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that there is no constitutional right to assisted suicide. Tragically, however, the practice of assisted suicide has begun in Oregon. Fortunately, because certain powerful drugs (especially some suitable for killing patients) are under federal control, the federal government can put up a significant obstacle to euthanasia and assisted suicide by prohibiting doctors from prescribing these controlled drugs for such purposes. Hence passing the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act is absolutely necessary.
Beyond its immediate effect of prohibiting the use of controlled drugs in euthanasia and assisted suicide, this law would put everyone, including the courts and state legislatures, on notice that federal policy opposes the perversion of medicine from a compassionate art that heals and alleviates pain to a sinister force that "treats" patients by killing them.
OPPOSITION TACTICS
Pro-abortion Senator Ron Wyden (D-Or.) has already announced that he will filibuster the Hyde-Nickles bill-even though he claims to be "personally opposed" to the legalization of physician-assisted suicide in his home state. The task for pro-lifers is therefore to persuade 60 senators to break the filibuster and vote for the bill.
Beyond the threat of a filibuster there is always the possibility of yet another Clinton veto of a pro-life measure. Hence, pro-lifers must secure two-thirds majorities for the bill in Congress.
Aside from stopping this particular bill, pro-death organizations want to make euthanasia and assisted suicide generally acceptable. The tactics are the same as for the legalization of abortion: Use the extreme (and dishonestly presented) case to portray killing as "mainstream" medicine and then shop around for a sympathetic court to create a new "right" to be killed. Put horror stories before the public-and then sneak through a referendum that grants a "very narrowly limited right" to be killed with "tight legal safeguards" that always disappear after the new "right" has been created.
They put suffering or depressed people in front of TV cameras who ask to be killed by a "compassionate" doctor; but they don't propose to treat the depression that so typically afflicts those seeking to kill themselves. There is no demand to apply modern medicine for the effective control of pain. There is, however, a demand that killing be considered medical treatment. (Oregon already covers assisted suicide under its health plan for low-income patients - -while it rations medical care for them and denies some lifesaving treatments.) And there is consuming preoccupation with death and dying. Look at the names of these organizations: Choice in Dying, Compassion in Dying Federation, Death with Dignity, Hemlock Society.
OPPORTUNITY AND OBLIGATION
When the Supreme Court overwhelmed pro-lifers in 1973 with its Roe v. Wade decision, we were not as organized and experienced as we are now. This time we don't have those excuses. This time we have committed pro-lifers in Congress who are willing to act in the defense of life. This time we have the opportunity to do something. But with opportunity comes the solemn obligation for each of us to do everything in our power to pass the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act. To repeat Dr. O'Steen's wise and imploring words: What will history say of this generation of pro-life Americans if we fail?
Start with the Action Request on the back cover.