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Article: Suicide and the law. (Death With Dignity)
- Article from:
- The Humanist
- Article date:
- November 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 American Humanist Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Dr. Jack Kevorkian's attempts to assist terminally ill people to commit suicide may be controversial or even illegal, but there's still one sure way to get legal help for a quick and painless death: you need only commit murder in one of the 22 states which practices execution by lethal injection.
Of course, even people in great pain with no reasonable hope of a cure in their lifetime may be reluctant to take another's life, but what choice does Michigan and some 21 other states leave them? It won't be easy: Dr. Kevorkian's clients were incapable of taking their own lives, so committing murder might already be beyond their capacities. Conversely, if these people ...