Washington Watch

A Split On Suicide

JAMES D. BESSER
Wishington Correspondent

A

s the effort to ban physician
assisted suicide moves into
the U.S. Senate, two leading
Jewish lawmakers find them-
selves on opposite sides of the fence.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.),
the only Orthodox Jew in the Senate, is
a lead co-sponsor of the measure that
would ban the practice — a direct chal-
lenge to a grassroots movement to allow
assisted suicide on humanitarian
grounds.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), another
Jewish lawmaker, is the leading oppo-
nent of the measure.
That's no surprise, since Oregon is
the fist state to pass a law legalizing
physician assisted suicide. The House
passed the Pain Relief Promotion Act
two weeks ago, which allows physicians
to use aggressive drugs to alleviate pain
for dying patients.
Those provisions were added to
address concerns that a strict assisted-
suicide ban could discourage doctors
from prescribing strong pain medica-
tions because they could be accused of
providing the medications to help
patients kill themselves.
The Orthodox Union is supporting
the measure; Agudath Israel of America,
while supporting the ban on assisted sui-
cide, has reservations about some of the
language allowing palliative medications
even when they could result in death.
Non-Orthodox Jewish groups have
steered clear of the controversy
"From the traditional Jewish perspec-
tive, assisted suicide is clearly out of
bounds," said Nathan diament, head of
the Mrs Institute for Public Affairs.
"But Jewish law does endorse the idea
of aggressive pain amelioration.
This bill would allow doctors to use
very strong medications to counteract
pain. It's a good balance.

) 3

Money For Wye

With passion, risk, fear of retribution
and more than a touch of internecine
conflict, congressional Republicans, the
Democratic administration, and a coali-
tion of Jewish groups this week finally
united to secure the $1.8 billion Wye
aid appropriation. The long-promised
money enables Israel, Jordan and the
Palestinian Authority to implement last
year's Mideast peace agreement.
But at midweek, the agreed-to com-
promise was still waiting for deals on

several other major budget bills;
Republican leaders said they wouldn't
send the revised foreign aid bill to the
White House until all budget negotia-
tions were completed.
As the end-game negotiations
reached fever pitch last week, Jewish
groups split between those siding with
the administration, which said it would
reject any Wye compromise that didn't
include more money for other foreign
policy priorities, and those arguing that
passing the Wye package took prece-
dence over other provisions of a vetoed
foreign aid bill.
The American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, the pro-Israel lobby, staged
an all-out lobbying assault in favor of
the Wye appropriation alone. But other
groups, led by the Religious Action
Center of Reform Judaism, supported
President Bill Clinton's assertion that a
deal without increases in aid for Africa
and Latin America would be unaccept-
able.
In the end, enough Democrats sup-
ported the president that GOP leaders
realized they would not have a veto-
proof majority for a spending bill that
didn't address the administration's con-
cerns. The result: a compromise that
gave the administration an extra $799
million for Third World debt relief,
nuclear security in Russia and U.S.
peacekeeping efforts.

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Pressure On Germany

The status of the ongoing negotiations
over compensation for former Nazi-era
slave laborers changes by the day. Now,
several lawmakers are weighing in with
legislation intended to ratchet up the
pressure on the Germans.
Last week, Sen. Charles E. Schumer
(D-N.Y.) and Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-
N.Y.) introduced a bill allowing sur-
vivors to sue the German companies
that profited from their slave labor.
The new legislation would extend the
statute of limitations to 2010, and give
the U.S. courts the power to judge these
cases.
"The most important point is that it
serves notice to all concerned that the
U.S. Senate is committed to insuring
that justice be done," said Elan
Steinberg, executive director of the
World Jewish Congress. "It would be
best if this legislation wasn't necessary,
but there is growing fear that we won't
be able to settle this through the negoti-
ations without some additional pressure
for a fair settlement." 7

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