SUICIDE HELPER ASKS FOR NATIONAL NETWORK

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

DATE: THURSDAY, January 23, 1992                   TAG: 9201230065
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DETROIT                                LENGTH: Short
SUICIDE HELPER ASKS FOR NATIONAL NETWORK
A physician who developed suicide machines and used them to assist three ailing women in killing themselves is proposing a nationwide network of doctors who could help people end their lives.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian outlines the plan in an article in Kevorkian February's American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, a quarterly for psychiatrists who serve as expert witnesses in legal cases.
The 85-page issue is entirely devoted to the article, "A Fail-Safe Model For Justifiable Medically Assisted Suicide [Medicide]," and responses from 13 psychiatrists.
"He's an unusual thinker, a very avant-garde thinker. But a serious thinker," said Edward Miller, executive director of the journal based in Laguna Hills, Calif.
Miller said he learned of Kevorkian through reports of the three lethal-injection suicides in which the doctor assisted in Michigan. Medical authorities suspended Kevorkian's license, and a grand jury is considering whether to charge him in the two most recent cases, in October. Michigan does not have a specific law against assisted suicides.
Kevorkian recommends establishing panels of suicide specialists, whom he would call "obitiatrists," who would review requests from people wishing to kill themselves.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB