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Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act influences end-of-life care across the state as doctors wrestle with prescribing pain treatment.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 09 (Reuters) – Ruling in a closely watched “right to die” case, California’s top court said on Thursday that family members have no right to stop life support for conscious patients who are not terminally ill.

The California Supreme Court’s unanimous decision came several weeks after the death of the man at the center of the case, 49-year-old Robert Wendland, who died of natural causes on July 17 while still attached to life support.

We have terrorists on the loose, anthrax wafting through the mail, and the Justice Department is in hot pursuit of … terminally ill patients?

A move by the Bush administration to dismantle Oregon’s physician-assisted suicide law was dealt a setback Tuesday when a federal judge extended a temporary restraining order for up to five months.

Text of Ashcroft memorandum prohibiting use of federally controlled substances for assisted suicide.

Nathan Diament spent two years lobbying Congress to shut down Oregon’s assisted-suicide law. But when Bush administration officials called Tuesday to say they had done the job by administrative action, he was not only pleased but also surprised.

US Attorney General John Ashcroft has no business trying to overturn the voters’ will by sending federal drug agents after Oregon doctors who prescribe drugs to assist suicides.

Four patients joined in a legal motion brought today in Federal District Court here by Attorney General Hardy Myers of Oregon to impose a stay on the federal directive. A ruling on the state’s request is not expected until Thursday at the earliest.

The state of Oregon sued the U.S. government on Wednesday over a federal directive that essentially blocks the state’s assisted-suicide law.

Not long ago, a cancer specialist I know faced a situation that chilled those of us who care for people with terminal illness.

Siding with the State of Oregon, the only state to legalize assisted suicide, a federal judge issued an order here today that would temporarily block Attorney General John Ashcroft’s move earlier this week to overturn the law.

Oregon doctors can prescribe lethal medicines again to terminally ill patients who want to end their lives now that a judge has temporarily blocked a federal order that had essentially shut down the state’s unique assisted-suicide law.