Oregon is the only US state where assisted suicide is permitted.
Outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to overturn rulings by two courts that protect Oregon doctors from federal punishment for aiding suicide.
The Death with Dignity Act, approved by Oregon's voters, has been used by 170 people since 1998. Most had cancer.
Assisted suicide is an important issue to conservative Christians, who helped George W Bush win a second term as president last week, Associated Press reports. Mr Ashcroft, himself a conservative Christian, issued his directive against assisted suicide in 2001. In it he declared that using drugs restricted under the Controlled Substances Act to help patients commit suicide was not a "legitimate medical purpose". He ordered that doctors and pharmacists prescribing lethal doses of drugs should have their prescription licenses revoked.
But a federal court and the Ninth Circuit appeal court have blocked the directive, saying it was beyond Mr Ashcroft's powers to interfere in state medical regulation. Under Oregon's "right-to-die" law, patients must be in the final six months of a terminal illness, have their diagnosis confirmed by two doctors and be judged mentally competent to make the decision.
Campaigners in Hawaii and Vermont are seeking to bring in similar legislation. Legal judgements so far have not rested on the ethics of euthanasia itself. The Supreme Court is likely to decide early next year whether to hear the Attorney General's appeal over Oregon.
Oregon's Assisted Suicide Laws wrote: -Patients must be in final six months of terminal illness
-Patients must make two oral requests and one written request to die, each separated by a two-week period
-Patients must be mentally competent to make decision
-Two doctors must confirm diagnosis
-Lethal prescription of drugs prescribed by doctor and administered by patients themselves
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