Statement of Chairman Henry J. Hyde

Subcommittee on the Constitution Hearing on

H.R. 4006, the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 1998

July 14, 1998

Last year the Congress and the Administration addressed the issue of assisted suicide with an unequivocal voice. The House and the Senate passed the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997, which ensures that no federal funds could ever be used to explicitly cause a patient's death. The President signed this bill on April 30, 1997, and made clear his longstanding position against assisted suicide.

Today, however, we are forced to squarely face the reality of what has been called, a culture of death. The slippery slope that some of us warned about back in 1973 when the Supreme Court sanctified abortion as another choice, a legitimate option - indeed a preferred option, now appears before us as a precipitous cliff where the elderly, the infirm, the sick, the disable are lined up at the top and are invited to "do the right thing" and relieve their loved ones of their burdensome existence by plunging off this cliff, under the care of a physician who will assist them in their suicidal journey. The metaphor of a slippery slope is remarkably appropriate when one considers that exterminating a life in a womb has become a constitutional right. Partial-birth abortion, the killing of an almost born child, is, as we speak, legal. The unborn child marks the beginning of life. We now move from this tragedy to assisted suicide at the end of life's continuum. Who is to say the slippery slope won't become steeper and the unwanted will soon join the unborn as candidates in this journey to oblivion.

Much to my dismay, the Attorney General on June 5, 1998, in response to my request to her, to uphold the decision of Thomas Constantine, the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), instead, overruled his decision and opined that assisted suicide does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Controlled Substances Act. She left the task of defining, and therefore, determining whether the action of a physician in assisting in a patient's suicide is a "legitimate medical purpose" under the federal Controlled Substances Act, to the states.

I introduced H.R. 4006, the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 1998, with the co-sponsorship of Representative James Oberstar, to clarify that intentionally dispensing or distributing of a controlled substance with the purpose of causing the suicide or euthanasia of any individual is not a legitimate medical purpose and will subject an applicant or registrant to revocation or suspension of their DEA registration to provide and dispense controlled substances. I was concerned that doctors not be hindered in their palliative care of patients because provisions in this bill may present a situation where pain alleviation that results in death is confused with actions that are taken to assist in a patient's suicide. In this regard, Section 2 of the bill provides for the establishment of an advisory medical review board of pain relief experts to offer the DEA recommendations on revocation and suspension cases where pain relief may have caused the patient's death. This legislation has been carefully crafted to make a clear distinction between medical practice that may risk death in the interest of relieving pain and suffering and a practice that has the ending of the patient's life as its primary goal.

Judiciary Homepage