Ashcroft on Alert for Assisted Suicides

From the party that considers itself the “states’ rights” party, we have Atty. Gen John Ashcroft, Republican and Christian soldier absolute, ready to do battle. By attacking Oregon’s assisted-suicide law (Nov. 7) at a time of national grief, Ashcroft is using a diversion tactic to weasel into a place he doesn’t belong. He wants to play “pulpiteer” and jackhammer religionism into every Oregonian.

Forget any quasi-legalese about federally controlled substance use in state-assisted death; that’s not at the core of his agenda, but it is his loophole. Nor is it his motive. He wants everyone in the land to adorn themselves with a wreath of thorns and die the religious way when the end comes.

Ridding “evil” is the defining characteristic of the lunatic Christian extreme, and Ashcroft is its poster boy. When will the Republican Party realize we are a nation of individuals, not mandated crusades?

Stephen Pitt

Moreno Valley

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How bizarre. The Times carried a Nov. 8 editorial (“Ashcroft: Not Busy Enough?”) decrying Ashcroft’s attack on the Oregon right-to-die law, while no such reaction was forthcoming in the equally egregious attack on California medical marijuana dispensaries. The religious right wing, headed by Ashcroft, will not tolerate anyone living or dying by any other precepts than those determined by its own narrow definitions. That warrants an editorial, too.

Harry D. Fisher

Woodland Hills

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The death-with-dignity issue cannot be argued in a vacuum. It sounds pretty to say that a person has a right to kill himself/herself, but when viewed in context, it is actually the first step on a slippery slope into a dark abyss.

“Respectable” people have been arguing for decades that society should murder individuals regarded as undesirable. The death-with-dignity battle is just one step in a much larger movement to engineer our society by snuffing people regarded by others around them as “useless.”

A handful of people in a conspiracy to gain control of assets or eliminate a burden can, through a wide variety of methods, mentally overwhelm a victim to obtain the necessary consent, and then dispatch the victim, thereby eliminating the only witness against them. No man-made system will ever be able to protect against this. Let’s not be lulled by the siren who calls us to the rocks.

Michael O’Brien

Los Angeles