[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 98 (Tuesday, July 21, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1372]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    PRESENTATION TO THE CONSTITUTION SUBCOMMITTEE, COMMITTEE ON THE 
                JUDICIARY, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JOSEPH R. PITTS

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 21, 1998

  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following for the Record.

     Statement by Congressman Joseph R. Pitts on Lethal Drug Abuse 
               Prevention Act, (H.R. 4006), July 14, 1998

       Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to speak in 
     support of H.R. 4006, the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 
     1998. This bill will prohibit the dispensing or distribution 
     of a controlled substance in order to cause or assist suicide 
     or euthanasia.
       Mr. Chairman, I strongly believe that we can and must do 
     better for our disabled and ill citizens than kill them. You 
     cannot solve problems by getting rid of the people to whom 
     the problems happen. When a teenager says her life is not 
     worth living because she has lost her boyfriend, we don't 
     say, ``Well, that's her choice.'' We recognize it as a cry 
     for help, as a view that can and will be changed.
       Statistics show that of those who attempt suicide and are 
     stopped, less than 5% have gone on to kill themselves five 
     years later. What a tragedy it would be for the more than 95% 
     who survived if we had turned our backs and not tried to stop 
     them from taking their lives. Sadly, that is exactly what 
     opponents of H.R. 4006 seek to do.
       I know that it will be said it is different for those who 
     are terminally ill. But a study published in the American 
     Journal of Psychiatry found that of the 24% who are 
     terminally ill who said they wanted to die, all were 
     suffering from clinically diagnosable depression. Depression 
     is an illness, and it distorts judgment. We should treat it 
     in terminally ill individuals as much as in others.
       Let no one suppose, however, that this is an issue that 
     applies only to the terminally ill. Authorizing assisted 
     suicide for those with terminal illness is only the tip of 
     the iceberg. We can see what happened in the Netherlands. In 
     1981, a Dutch court said that under certain conditions, a 
     doctor could assist a terminally ill person's suicide. In 
     1982, another court extended that to elderly people who were 
     not terminally ill, but in chronic bad health, a decision 
     upheld by the Dutch Supreme Court in 1984. In 1986, the Dutch 
     Supreme Court said that people with disabilities could be 
     killed.
       In 1989 Holland moved from voluntary assisted suicide to 
     nonvoluntary euthanasia when the Supreme Court said that 
     doctors could give lethal injections to children born with 
     Down syndrome. In 1991 a Dutch court legitimized killing a 25 
     year old woman with mental illness, and in 1994 the Supreme 
     Court said that a woman, with no physical illness or 
     disability, but who was depressed because of the death of her 
     last remaining child, could be killed.
       Once you accept the view that death is a solution to human 
     problems, it becomes very hard to draw lines. Gradually, it 
     will be seen as an answer to more and more problems, for less 
     and less weighty reasons. We in America must not start down 
     that road.
       My colleagues from Oregon argue that Congress has no 
     business in this area, that it should be left entirely up to 
     the state of Oregon. They miss the point that we are talking 
     about federally controlled drugs. Under existing federal law, 
     it is generally illegal to dispense or distribute these drugs 
     unless you have a special license or ``registration'' from 
     the federal government. If you are a medical practitioner or 
     pharmacist, you are granted that federal registration to 
     prescribe certain of these federally controlled substances 
     for a legitimate medical purpose.
       Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act in the first 
     place because drug abuse is a national problem. A state 
     cannot nullify the federal law if it chooses, as a matter of 
     state law, to legalize the use of heroin or LSD. The same 
     Attorney General who overturned the ruling of the 
     professionals at the federal Drug Enforcement Administration 
     on this matter has successfully gotten injunctions to close 
     cannabis clubs in California that were selling marijuana for 
     supposed medicinal purposes as authorized by a California 
     referendum.
       Mr. Chairman, you can't have it both ways. If my 
     distinguished colleagues from Oregon really want to assert 
     states' rights, they should be pushing for the complete 
     repeal of the federal Controlled Substances Act. But while it 
     is in effect, for the federal government to permit the 
     dispensing of otherwise prohibited federally controlled drugs 
     to kill patients means the federal government is 
     affirmatively facilitating assisted suicide.
       The American people don't want this to happen, by a margin 
     of more than 2 to 1. A Wirthlin Worldwide poll in March found 
     that 65% oppose allowing the use of ``federally controlled 
     drugs for the purpose of assisted suicide and euthanasia.''
       Mr. Chairman, the Declaration of Independence describes 
     life as something that is ``inalienable''--a right so 
     fundamental that it cannot be given away even voluntarily. 
     The principal author of the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, 
     wrote in 1809 that ``The care of human life and happiness, 
     and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate 
     object of good government.''
       Our country stands at a crossroads between the way of death 
     and the way of life. I urge that this subcommittee lead us in 
     the life-affirming direction by reporting out the Lethal Drug 
     Abuse Prevention Act of 1998.

     

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