(CNSNews.com) - Conservative groups this week filed legal briefs supporting U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's effort to give federal prosecutors the authority to prosecute doctors in Oregon who assist terminally ill patients to take their own lives.

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) and the Christian Medical Association (CMA) filed friend of the court briefs with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to support Ashcroft's efforts to stop prescriptions of drugs for physician-assisted suicides.

Dr. David Stevens, executive director of the CMA, said one of his main concerns was that the Oregon law would open the door to abuses of patients by profit-driven HMOs, which he said undermined patient health and safety in the process of slashing costs.

"I think [it] is going to be one of the things that is going to move us more towards this kind of 'culture of death' with physician assisted suicide," he said.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ, said Ashcroft's position was "legally correct and constitutionally sound."

"This is a critical case that centers on the defense of human life - a case that focuses on the federal government's right to legally prohibit physicians from prescribing life-ending medication to assist patients [who] commit suicide," Sekulow said in a statement.

At issue is the "Death With Dignity Act," a measure twice approved by Oregon voters that allows doctors to help patients who are judged to have less than six months to live to request a lethal dose of drugs to end their lives.

According to the law, two doctors have to confirm that the patient is terminally ill and mentally competent to make the request. Since it went into effect in 1998, 91 Oregon residents have used the law to end their lives.

Ashcroft invoked the Controlled Substance Act, a federal law that declares what drugs doctors may prescribe, to prevent Oregon doctors from prescribing lethal drugs to terminally ill patients.

Doctors who write prescriptions for anything other than a "legitimate medical purpose" would lose their federal license to write prescriptions for federally controlled substances, Ashcroft said. Assisting in suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose," he said.

In April, a federal judge in Portland, Ore., blocked the Justice Department from using the Controlled Substance Act in this case. Ashcroft is now appealing that ruling in a federal appeals court in San Francisco.

Michael Schwartz, vice president of government relations with Concerned Women for America, said what is at stake is not only the question of whether doctors can kill patients, but whether states have the right to interpret and twist federal laws.

"Anybody who is concerned about federalism is not only interested in protecting the rights of the states to do what legitimately lies within their jurisdiction, but also in protecting the jurisdiction of the federal government from being carried over a cliff by the actions of one or another state. That's a basic principle of our Constitution," he said.

Ryan Ross, communications director with the Hemlock Society, a national group that supports patients' rights to end their lives, said the attorney general was confusing street drugs with drugs prescribed by doctors.

"In these instances, there's no question but that these drugs have appropriate medical application to treat pain, among other things. The question is, who should be regulating their use, and in America, there's a long-standing, time-honored principle that the regulation of medicine should be left up to the states," Ross said.

Moreover, there was no evidence to suggest patients in Oregon who decided to end their own lives did so because of financial concerns, he said.

"There is no instance in which there is any indication that someone who hastened their death did so in response to financial pressures. We've got a four-year track record now and it's crystal clear," he said.