NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      DETROIT (CWNews.com) - Assisted suicide activist Jack Kevorkian was arrested and charged with murder last Wednesday in the lethal injection of a man that was nationally televised last Sunday.

      Kevorkian was released on a $750,000 bond that forbid him from participating "any homicide, euthanasia, or whatever you call it. Any action used in taking of human life." Kevorkian insisted during the proceedings that he will represent himself, and will only retain three "legal advisers." He has been charged with murder in the first degree, assisting suicide, and delivering a controlled substance.

      During the broadcast of the CBS news show 60 Minutes on Sunday, Kevorkian dared prosecutors to arrest him for lethally injecting Thomas Youk of Waterford Township, Michigan on September 17. Youk suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease. Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca, who filed charges after obtaining Kevorkian's unedited videotapes from CBS, has said his case is legally sound. "We charge him with the charges that he deserves. They're supported by the law, they're supported by the facts," Gorcyca said.

      Although Kevorkian has been acquitted three times on assisted suicide charges, the lawyer who defended him in those case predicted his former client would be convicted if he represented himself. "I can tell you what the results will be if he represents himself. He will go to jail and starve," Geoffrey Fieger said Thursday. "He has a constitutional right to make a fool of himself, and the prosecutor will make him look like a fool." Kevorkian said on 60 Minutes that he starve himself if convicted.

      Meanwhile, in Melbourne the Australian Medical Association on Friday called for a police investigation into assisted suicide activist Philip Nitschke who recently admitting to aiding in the death of 15 people.

      Nitschke, commenting on the arrest of American assisted suicide Jack Kevorkian, said on Thursday that he had continued to aid in the death of people after a law legalizing the practice was overturned last year. He added that he had videotaped the victims giving him permission to kill them.

      "I think police should be able to investigate anybody that has publicly said they have ... got video evidence that they have done such a thing," David Brand, president of the Australian Medical Association, told ABC radio. "It seems rather strange that the police sit on their hands until somebody actually complains," he added.