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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 8, 1997)
STAN HORTON i&03! 221SSW ®hc #rescm\an OA.W AND SUNDAY . eon**. O'*0" ,7*” ,320 S* *co*4**V 6 OREX HE1KES “•BNMWnjorTOP ’srsfYSsme, nwT«urreucoTwWMNoftK 85 o c moat Statesman Journal Jon Davies Heporlef S55JESS— to*#®**4** 2580 OjrCAS.N f SOWW.QRWJO' 25® ^macraffcaid RO Oo, 130 The Denver Post 1S60 Broadway Denver, CO 80202 (303) 820-1294 Residence: (303) 722-6784 Broncos (303) 792-2703 John Henderson Denver Broncos Beal Writer Look where we can take you. The Emerald is currently hiring news reporters and copy editors. Pick up an application at our office in Suite 300 of the EMU and add your card to the growing list of Emerald alumni. BOARD VACANCY MAKE A DIFFERENCE GAIN EXPERIENCE BE ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS! Due to the retirement of Jody Watts, there is a vacant Classified and Management Service Personnel position on the U of O Bookstore Board of Directors through June 1998. Applicants must be currently holding a full-time University position within the category of classified service or management service. Members attend monthly board meetings and serve on two committees. Bookstore board members represent students, faculty and staff of the U of O. Board members are directly involved in making major policy decisions for the store. All members receive a $50.00 monthly stipend for serving on the Board. All applications are due on Friday, January 17,1997 Please pick up your application at the Bookstore administrative office upstairs. UNIVERSITY 13th & Kincaid, 346-4331 Right to die goes on trial today ■ ASSISTED SUICIDE: The Supreme Court will study briefs from patients, families, doctors, religious leaders and philosophers By Calvin Woodward Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will hear about Sara Sinnard, who suffocated her self with a plastic bag because she couldn’t find a doctor to end her agony from heart disease, when it takes up the issue of assisted sui cide today. It will also hear about Larry McAfee, a quadriplegic who asked for the right to die but changed his mind, concluding in the process that assisted suicide devalues humanity. Justice Antonin Scalia has con fessed to feeling like someone be ing asked to deliver cosmic wis dom. “Why would you leave that to nine lawyers, for heaven’s sake?” he recently asked. Because there is ultimately nowhere else to go. It’s an issue that can touch any one: the dreadfully ill grandmoth er, the failing dad, their families, the handicapped — anyone, be cause everyone dies. Should death be hastened by the healer or arrive at its own pace? That question comes to the court atop a mountain of human pain and worry. In deciding whether prohibi tions against assisted suicide in New York and Washington state are constitutional, the nine jus tices will be dealing with perhaps their most emotionally laden case outside abortion. A decision is ex pected by July. The court is braced for a big day today, when it will hear argu ments. Officials were handing out tick ets after midnight for the 50 or more courtroom seats reserved for the public. Ticket holders had to spend the rest of the cold night outdoors on the building’s plaza. The court expected 1,000 or more demonstrators to gather out side and assigned 115 press seats inside, more than four times the usual number. Briefs have been filed from philosophers in favor of the right to assisted suicide and philoso phers against. Doctors, religious leaders, patients and families are similarly divided. “The notion that physician-as sisted death ... should be a matter of personal choice at once pushes us because it is at odds with our traditional values, while it pulls us because it offers a possible so lution to one of the most heart breaking of our present-day reali ties,” Oregon says in its brief. Federal courts ruled last year the prohibitions in New York and Washington were unconstitution al. Oregon was the first state to le galize assisted suicide for termi nally ill adults but backs the right of the other states to prohibit it. The Clinton administration op poses assisted suicide. Public opinion appears uncer tain. In an October Gallup Poll com missioned by the National Hos pice Organization, 50 percent of respondents said doctor-assisted suicide should be legal and 41 percent said it should not. A study that month by Duke University indicated support was weakest among people most like ly to use the right. Only 40 per cent of the frail, elderly people surveyed favored assisted suicide as an option for the terminally ill while 60 percent of their relatives did. The American Medical Associ ation will tell the court of the “profound danger” for people with undiagnosed depression or inadequately treated pain who may turn to suicide instead of proper care and pain relief. The American Medical Student Association will counter that for many terminal patients, “death may constitute not harm but the only available relief.” A Catholic group calls assisted death “a poisonous concoction of fii-— The notion that physician assisted death... should be a matter of personal choice at once pushes us because it is at odds with our traditional values, while it pulls us because it offers a possible solution — excerpt from Oregon trial briefing -55 warmhearted, misguided pity and coldhearted utilitarianism.” A group of families whose rela tives sought assisted suicide asks: “How ‘natural’ is it to die of con vulsions and dementia?” In the passions involved and points of public debate, the argu ment on assisted suicide has some parallels with abortion. Yet both sides are cautious about go ing too far to link the two. Abortion opponents see assist ed suicide as yet another attack on the sanctity of life. The case of Sinnard, who died alone because her husband of 49 years might have been implicated had he been in the room, is held out as the equivalent of the back alley abortions women went through before legalized abortion. Her death is one of many wrenching stories to be presented to the court. In another, Patty Rosen de scribes a 10-hour ordeal she expe rienced helping her 26-year-old daughter, stricken with bone can cer, die. “I moaned, sobbed, prayed and kept pushing the drugs,” she writes. Advocates for the disabled will contend some of the people whose suicides were attended by Dr. Jack Kevorkian were not ter minally ill, but depressed over their condition. Assisted suicide, they say, is a “death train” for the handicapped. A number of disabled people have formed a group to oppose as sisted suicide. They call them selves Not Dead Yet. Til* University of Oregon Oriels Center proudly presents “CONNECTIONS” The Annuel Crisis Prevention Conference Saturday, February 1, 1997 Erb Memorial Union University of Oregon 8:30 a.nrt. to 4:30 p.m. (Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. In the EMU Ballroom) Open to the general public Registration has begun for Winter term 1997. Don’t overlook the Crisis Prevention Conference on February 1, 1997. You can attend the all day conference and receive class credit. The Crisis Prevention Conference, the annual fund raising event for the University of Oregon Crisis Center, is centered around providing individuals with knowledge and skills to help prevent crisis as well as skills to deal with or assist crisis situations. Some of the topics to be included are: Abusive relationships & domestic violence, Anger Management, Career Issues, International and Multicultural Issues, Sexual Orientation, and much more. For more information call Glenn Matchett-Morris Director of the University of Oregon Crisis Center, at 346-4487. $15 Registration Fee Available for one UO credit CSPY 408 CRN 22136 • CSPY 508 CRN 22141 For more information or to preregister please call the Crisis Center Business Line at 346-^1487. catch the o.d.e. on the world wide
