
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 11, 1990                   TAG: 9006110232
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: PORTLAND, ORE.                                LENGTH: Short

SUICIDE-MACHINE USER EULOGIZED AS `PIONEER'

The woman who took her life with the press of a button was called a "pioneer in the battle for death with dignity" at a memorial service she planned as carefully as her suicide.

"To die a little later, or a little sooner, does not matter," the Rev. Alan Deale said Sunday at the service for Janet Elaine Adkins.

What matters is "to live bravely, to love wisely, to see how beautiful the trees are, and even the sea - to enjoy the world," said her minister.

Adkins, a 54-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease, selected the music and speakers for the service before traveling to Michigan to end her life by means of a drug-injecting machine built by medical maverick Dr. Jack Kevorkian.

Kevorkian, who is under investigation by prosecutors and medical regulators, did not attend the service.

- Associated Press

by CNB