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

DATE: TUESDAY, August 24, 1993                   TAG: 9308240034
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

SUICIDE ETHICS CHANGED

A professional association for psychotherapists has changed its ethics code to allow members to attend the assisted suicide of a client as long as they don't provide the poison or device used as the means of death.

The new policy adopted by the National Association of Social Workers also advises its 145,000 members that they should be "open to full discussion" of suicide with clients considering it.

"We didn't take a stance on whether this is moral or immoral," said Vikki Peay, who headed the group's panel that developed the new policy on assisted suicide. The group is made up of professional psychotherapists who work in a broad range of social work jobs, from school and hospital counselors to private clinicians.

Some social workers hold advanced academic degrees and must be licensed by their states, but they are not psychiatrists or psychologists, who have more training and licensing requirements.

The policy, adopted last week by the association's delegate assembly, does not require a social worker to comply with a client's request to attend the suicide. And it forbids them from actively assisting in the suicide or providing the means to carry it out.

Peay, who practices in Houma, La., said Monday the association wanted to give ethical guidance to members on what to do about clients who are facing death, and the issue of assisted suicide was brought up by social workers from Michigan.

That's where Dr. Jack Kevorkian has made a name for himself, assisting people with chronic or terminal conditions to take their own lives. Kevorkian, who has had a role in the deaths of 17 people since 1990, is awaiting trial in Detroit for breaking Michigan's new law banning assisted suicide.

by CNB