Stark Differences Make for Clear Contrast Between Bush and Kerry.(abortion law)

In the 2000 presidential election, only 51.2% of the voting-age population in America chose to take a few minutes out of their schedules to vote in an election so close that its final outcome was not determined for 35 days afterwards.

This dismal turnout came in spite of an election that was both a referendum on the eight years of the Clinton Administration and one that offered as clear a contrast as you could ask for.

Until now, that is. In pro-life President George W. Bush and pro-abortion Sen. John Kerry, the American people have before them two men whose differences on issues in general, and those of interest to pro-lifers, in particular, could not be more marked.

The most recent illustration came in May. A divided three-member panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government has no authority to stop the use of federally controlled drugs to facilitate physician-assisted suicide in Oregon.

The panel ruled against Mr. Bush's attorney general, John Ashcroft, who on November 6, 2001, had reinstated federal policy that said federally controlled drugs may not be prescribed to kill patients. Ashcroft was responding to a 1998 decision by Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno, who said this was permissible if assisted suicide is legal under state law. Oregon is, of course, the only such state.

Ashcroft's policy never took effect, because of court orders issued by U.S. District Judge Robert Jones. (See story, page 6.)

In an eery coincidence, barely a week before the decision, Kerry was asked by the Oregon Statesman Journal about the federal government's role vis vis Oregon's assisted suicide law.