Michigan Commission Favors Legal Physician-Assisted Suicide

As the trial of Jack Kevorkian resumed in Detroit, a 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 to 7 with four abstentions, the Michigan Commission on Death and Dying asked the Legislature to authorize the practice but also called for an elaborate set of restrictions to safeguard against abuse.

The draft measure 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 have 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, after a detailed process involving consultations with another physician, a psychiatrist or psychologist, a social worker and an expert in pain management.

The non-binding vote in a conference room at Michigan State University here 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.

The retired pathologist’s trial resumed Monday with the presiding judge rejecting a defense motion to dismiss charges, wire services reported. The defense had argued that the case was being conducted in the wrong county.

No country or state has legalized assisted suicide, although the practice is common in Holland and is being discussed in Oregon and Washington state.

Wayne County Dist. Atty. John O’Hair--a member of the suicide commission and the official who charged Kevorkian--said that some of the people Kevorkian was involved with would not have qualified under the two tests set out in the panel’s proposal and that Kevorkian’s procedures “don’t even approach the standards that we have recommended.”

The commission also recommended by a vote of 9 to 5 with six abstentions a proposal regulating the role of physicians in assisting suicide. It would authorize only the person who wished to die--not the physician--to initiate the act.