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Assisted-suicide advocates trying new tack
June 27, 1997
Web posted at: 8:22 p.m. EDT (0022 GMT)WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Advocates of physician-assisted suicide promised a renewed effort Friday to get the practice legalized in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling against it.
Barbara Coombs Lee, executive director of Compassion in Dying, announced the formation of an organization that will try to bring laws on assisted dying in line with what she said was public opinion supporting the idea.
"Right now, the environment is ripe for rogues like Jack Kevorkian in every state to start doing whatever they see fit, answerable to no one," Coombs Lee said.
"Very unlikely that they would ever be prosecuted, practically impossible that they would ever be convicted."
The new Compassion Center for End of Life Law and Policy will be headed by Kathryn Tucker, who argued against the Washington and New York assisted-suicide bans before the Supreme Court.
It was Coombs Lee's Seattle organization that sponsored the assisted-suicide cases decided Thursday by the Supreme Court. Its justices unanimously ruled that people have no right to constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide.
But the court left open the question of whether terminally ill, competent people in untreatable pain have a right to medical help to hasten death. The rulings also left room for doctors to continue giving dying patients large amounts of painkillers, even if the drugs might bring on death.
Coombs Lee said the Compassion in Dying Federation of America would also work on the issue through local affiliates, currently in Washington, California and soon Oregon, which has the only law permitting doctor-assisted suicide.
That law, which has not gone into effect because of legal challenges, would let doctors prescribe a lethal dose of painkillers to a terminally ill patient. A referendum on whether to repeal the law goes before voters in November.
Despite her views, Coombs Lee had few nice words for Dr. Jack Kevorkian, whose open defiance of Michigan's assisted-suicide ban has stirred national debate. Kevorkian has admitted taking part in at least 45 suicides.
"The activities of Jack Kevorkian are Exhibit A in why this needs to be brought out from under the cover, why it has to be openly acknowledged and openly regulated, so that society can really have some say over what guidelines and safeguards and procedures get followed," she said.
Dr. Timothy Quill of the University of Rochester, who has publicly acknowledged helping terminally ill patients die as a last resort, agreed.
"Kevorkian is defining the way-out margin. Clearly, he's a symptom of a big problem that we have in this country, and the middle ground is where we need to all be," Quill said.
Quill said there are some new approaches that come close to the legal edge while ending the patient's pain, such as sedating a person into unconsciousness. He and his allies want to enlist the help of mainstream groups in the medical community to create new alternatives for the dying.
"We're not talking about the absolute right to assisted suicide," said Quill, the New York physician who challenged his state's law. "We're talking about some obligation to find ways to respond when suffering gets extreme, that on rare occasions probably would include assisted suicide."
But for those opposed to assisted suicide, the court ruling vindicates their concerns.
"Society ought not give us that much power and we ought not arbitrarily take onto ourselves the power to intentionally end someone's life," said Dr. Daniel Sulmasy of Georgetown University Hospital.
While the Supreme Court resolved one legal challenge, it opened the door to a profound ethical and moral debate that will be argued loudly but, for now, resolved quietly between doctors and their patients.
Correspondent Jeff Levine and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
- Newsmaker Profile: Jack Kevorkian
- Message Board: Ban upheld on doctor-assisted suicide
Related stories:
- Mistrial declared in Kevorkian case - June 12, 1997
- Kevorkian gets green light in libel suit against AMA - May 28, 1997
- Police probe Kevorkian links to 2 deaths - February 3, 1997
- Kevorkian suggests guidelines for suicides - January 14, 1997
- Kevorkian won't be present for Supreme Court 'kooks' - January 6, 1997
- White House opposes physician-assisted suicide - November 12, 1996
Related sites:
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- COMPASSION IN DYING
- Right to Die Society
- International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force
- Supreme Court Justices
- FedWorld - Supreme Court Decisions
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