From the Seattle P.I.-
LANSING, Mich. -- For nearly a decade, Dr. Jack Kevorkian defiantly refused to stop his assisted suicide crusade, dropping off bodies at hospitals and even taping a death that was broadcast on CBS' "60 Minutes."
His actions prompted battles in many states to regulate how and when doctors could help people choose death.
But Kevorkian will find little changed when he's released June 1 from a state prison in southern Michigan after serving more than eight years of a 10- to 25-year sentence. He was convicted in 1999 of second-degree murder in the 1998 poisoning of 52-year-old Thomas Youk, a Michigan resident who had Lou Gehrig's disease.
Abortion opponents, Catholic leaders, advocates for the disabled and often doctors have fought efforts to follow the lead of Oregon, whose physician-assisted suicide law took effect in late 1997, making it the nation's only state with a law allowing the process.
Read the rest here.
Dr. Kevorkian plans to lobby for the legalization of assisted suicide in Michigan soon after his release. The Michigan Catholic Conference, "the official public policy voice of the Catholic Church in [Michigan]," released this statement.
"Any legislative effort to decriminalize assisted suicide in this state will face the same demise as the 1998 ballot issue that was overwhelmingly rejected by a three to one margin. Assisted suicide represents an affront to the dignity of the human person, a crime against life, and an attack on humanity -- all of which must be repudiated by elected officials and people of good will who seek to protect life from its beginning to its natural end. Those suffering from terminal conditions deserve to be treated with dignity and respect through appropriate palliative care along with love and comfort from family, friends and competent medical personnel."For more information on the fight against Euthanasia, visit euthanasia.com.
