Monitor: US opinion on the conviction of Dr Kevorkian for second- degree murder

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BUT AT least Kevorkian had, in the beginning, a valid point: it should not be up to the state to decide how much pain a person must endure, how much hopeless struggle is enough, how much loss of function must be accepted, how much dependency tolerated. Those are personal choices.

Fayetteville Observer Times

THE PRO-EUTHANASIA crowd should check out the Netherlands where doctors have had the right to kill patients for decades. The elderly and disabled fear getting medical help because they're not sure if they'll be cured or killed. Many have been put to death without any say in the matter. Is this where the US is headed? It is - especially if Oregon-style laws are passed in other states. Already an interest group, made up mostly of disabled persons, has formed to fight the trend. It calls itself Not Dead Yet. How sad that our most vulnerable citizens feel they need an organization with that name.

Augusta Chronicle

THE ISSUE of Dr Kevorkian in particular is not particularly complicated. This is a man who has aided in the deaths of many people whom he did not know and had not previously treated and whose mental competency to decide to die he was in no position to assess. Whatever one thinks of assisted suicide, there is something demonic about a freelance death peddler who seems - as Dr Kevorkian has over the years - to be so energized by such morbid work.

The Washington Post

JACK KEVORKIAN accurately represents the face of assisted death. Until this verdict, it had been effectively legalized in this state. Once legalized, the practice of assisting death, like Dr Kevorkian himself, would become increasingly uncontrollable. The job for the medical and legal systems now is not to seek ways to end the suffering of the ill by eliminating the sufferers themselves. It is to make sure pain is effectively relieved and to reassure patients that their wishes regarding end-of-life treatment - or non-treatment - will be respected.

Detroit News