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

DATE: TUESDAY, April 26, 1994                   TAG: 9404260131
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: EAST LANSING, MICH.                                LENGTH: Medium

PANEL URGES LEGALIZATION OF SUICIDE

As the criminal trial of Jack Kevorkian resumed in Detroit, a troubled and deeply divided citizens' commission narrowly recommended Monday that Michigan become the first place in the world to legalize physician-assisted suicide.

By a vote of 9-7 with four abstentions, the Michigan Commission on Death and Dying asked the state legislature to authorize the practice but also called for an elaborate set of restrictions to safeguard against abuse.

The draft measure the commission recommended would authorize physician-assisted suicide for people 18 or older who suffer from a ``terminal condition'' likely to result in death within six months or who suffer from an ``irreversible suffering condition'' involving ``subjectively unbearable or unacceptable suffering from a physical condition.'' It would require a physician to be present for the suicide, but only after a detailed process involving consultations with another physician, a psychiatrist or psychologist, a social worker and an expert in pain management.

The nonbinding vote in a conference room at Michigan State University climaxed a year of deliberations by the commission, which was created by the same law under which Kevorkian is being prosecuted for his role in the suicide of a 30-year-old, terminally ill Detroit man last August. But it will not end the debate on the emotional issue, a subject of growing national controversy ever since the 65-year-old retired pathologist began his crusade to legalize physician-assisted suicide in 1990. Since then he has helped 20 people kill themselves.

The legislature must act on the recommendation before November, when the existing ban expires.

``This is the first step in a long journey,'' said Wayne County Prosecutor John D. O'Hair, who was in the ironic position of being the law enforcement official who charged Kevorkian with a crime under existing law and, as a commission member, one of the chief advocates of the legalization proposal.

No country or state has legalized assisted suicide, although the practice is commonplace in Holland.

by CNB