Oregon -- one of three states where assisted suicide is legal -- may soon have a clinic set up specifically for that purpose.
Portland psychiatrist Stuart Weisberg, who specializes in addictions, has announced the opening of what he calls a "Dignity House" in The City of Roses. OregonLive.com says in an invitation to a special dinner next month, Weisberg claims to have been inspired by Michigan pathologist Jack "Dr. Death" Kevorkian, who boasts of helping to end the lives of 130 people who asked for his assistance.
But Rita Marker of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide points out that only two days after his announcement, Weisberg's medical license was suspended.
Rita Marker (International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide)"Interestingly enough, it wasn't because he was establishing an assisted suicide clinic but instead because he was prescribing inaccurately and erroneously," she says. "Now that emergency suspension, I would venture to guess, would not have occurred without his flamboyant announcement of an assisted-suicide clinic."
Marker points out though that with legalization of assisted suicide, it was just a matter of time for a clinic for that purpose to open. Weisberg's lack of a medical license, she explains, has nothing to do with opening the facility.
"...It wouldn't have to be a doctor who established the clinic as long as people just wanted to come there to take their death drugs," she states. "They could offer the amenities of a place where people could go. Rather than dying at home they could go to this place -- no fuss, no muss."
Marker notes that once Switzerland determined it would only punish assisted suicide when done "for selfish purposes," it was only a short time later that an assembly-line type of clinic was opened there.
Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
Publish Date: June 29, 2010
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Illinois Federation for Right to Life
2600 State Street, Ste E
Alton, IL 62002
Phone: 618.466.4122
Web: www.ifrl.org
E-mail: mail@ifrl.org
