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PONTIAC, Mich. -- Oakland County Circuit Judge Jessica Cooper is no stranger to trials involving Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Ms. Cooper, who clashed with prosecutors during a 1996 Kevorkian assisted suicide trial, will preside over the current first-degree murder case. She was chosen from 13 possible judges in a blind draw, The Detroit News reported Wednesday. The Oakland County Prosecutor's Office filed five appeals of her rulings during the 1996 case. The state Court of Appeals reversed her orders four times. The office also asked the higher court to remove Ms. Cooper from the trial, accusing her of losing objectivity. During that trial, Ms. Cooper blasted the appeals as ``personal attacks,'' and later filed grievances against several members of the prosecutor's office including John Skrzynski, who will be the lead prosecutor in the current case. Kevorkian was acquitted in the 1996 case. Skrzynski said his office hasn't decided whether to try again to have Ms. Cooper removed. Kevorkian is charged with first-degree murder, criminal assistance to a suicide and delivery of a controlled substance in the Sept. 17 injection death of Thomas Youk, which was broadcast to a national audience on CBS' ``60 Minutes'' last month. Youk, 52, suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease. If convicted of murder, Kevorkian could face a mandatory life sentence. The assisted suicide charge carries up to a five-year sentence. His preliminary examination is scheduled for Dec. 9. Kevorkian has said he will represent himself when he goes to trial, though he has named two legal advisers.

Disabled Activists Outraged by Kevorkian's Media Circus

Source: Not Dead Yet Press Release
"Kevorkian is a serial killer of disabled people, and should have been jailed long ago," says Diane Coleman, founder and President of Not Dead Yet, a national activist group leading the disabled community's fight against legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia. "If he were doing this to members of any other minority group, Kevorkian would be in jail by now and would never have gotten the bully pulpit of 60 Minutes." According to Stephen Drake, Not Dead Yet's leading expert on Kevorkian, "The press have ignored his primary agenda to push for a class of human beings on which doctors can do live experimentation and organ harvesting. In his book, Prescription Medicide, he writes that assisted suicide is just a first step to achieving public acceptance of this agenda." According to the Detroit Free Press, the overwhelming majority of Kevorkian's victims have been people with disabilities who were not terminal. The reasons they sought his help included fear of being forced into a nursing home due to insufficient home health services, abandonment by family and friends, loss of custody of a child, a husband's affair with another woman. Rather than addressing these underlying issues, the public and media looked only at the disability and found reason enough to deny equal justice. "Are we worried about him becoming a martyr if he starves himself in jail?" asks Carol Cleigh, from the Board of Not Dead Yet. "No----the real martyrs are his victims, martyrs to society's bigotry----it's called able-ism. If he was a racist or a sexist killer, he'd be in jail. It's the only way to stop him. The Michigan prosecutor needs to do his duty." Michigan voters, including a large majority of African-Americans, just defeated an assisted suicide referendum. Meanwhile in Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legalized, the Medicaid agency is cutting a variety of health services important to the disabled and chronically ill, and at the same time planning to fund assisted suicide. "Bioethicists are writing about health care economics and the duty to die, voluntarily or not," Coleman says. "Disabled people have a lot to be worried about."

CMDS Doctors Charge CBS's 60 Minutes With 'Media Malpractice'

National Organization Of Doctors Appalled By Televised Murder.
BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Members of a national organization of doctors and ethicists today deplored CBS's decision to run a "60 Minutes" segment featuring Jack Kevorkian killing a patient with a lethal injection. The 13,000-member Christian Medical & Dental Society sent a letter urging the network to pull the segment and not glorify doctors killing their patients. CMDS Executive Director Dr. David Stevens, who recently led a successful campaign against physician-assisted suicide in Kevorkian's home state of Michigan says, "It is appallingly clear that a network can make money by purveying sensationalism and degrading events. Killing a patient who has lost hope should not be promoted -- no matter how much advertising money is at stake." Stevens explains, "promoting morbid voyeurism in order to build advertising income during November sweeps is beneath the professional standard of CBS or any other reputable news organization. I would have hoped that CBS held to a higher standard." "It's no different than a live execution in a prison, except Kevorkian's patient has not committed a crime. Instead of receiving loving palliative care in his greatest time of need, this hopeless and depressed patient receives a lethal injection. That's a crime." Stevens asserts, "Chalk up another death for Jack Kevorkian. Except this time, it's a network committing ethical suicide. CBS should be held responsible for their media malpractice." For a copy of the letter to CBS News President Andrew Heyward, or for more information on bioethical issues, see the media page of the Christian Medical & Dental Society's web site at www.cmds.org.
SOURCE Christian Medical & Dental Society

YOUR Child in Risk

The California supreme court struck down a state law that would have required girls under 18 to obtain permission for abortions. Chief Justice Ronald George, said the 1987 law violates privacy rights guaranteed by the state Constitution. An estimated 30,000 minors obtain abortions in California each year, and the law would have forced them to obtain permission from a parent or a judge before legally terminating a pregnancy. About 30 states have consent laws for abortion. Source: L A Times

If your child is in an accident the hospital/Doctor needs your consent to operate and perform sometimes life saving procedures. Yet a Doctor can perform an elective and mentally as well as physically dangerous abortion on your child without your consent? How in any way does that make sense? Becky

Michigan Senate passes bill to ban organ harvesting

LANSING, Mich. -- Reacting again to the actions of Jack Kevorkian, the Michigan Senate passed a bill Thursday designed to prevent him from removing the organs of people he helps to commit suicide. The measure would limit such organ harvesting to a physician or someone operating under his supervision. Kevorkian, who has been present at more than 120 suicides, has had his medical license revoked in Michigan. ``This is an extension of our protection of life and protection of individuals in this state,'' said Sen. Leon Stille, R-Spring Lake, sponsor of the bill. He said the measure would ``protect people from being taken advantage of.'' The bill passed on a vote of 36-0 with little debate. It now goes to the House. It must pass by the end of the year or it will die along with the current legislative term. Under the bill, a person who removed a dead person's organs for transplant or other medical or scientific purpose would be guilty of a felony punishable by up to four years in prison and a fine of $1,000. Kevorkian attracted attention in June when he announced that the kidneys of a 45-year-old quadriplegic man who died in his presence were available for transplant. The kidneys in that case were eventually cremated. The organ harvesting bill is Senate Bill 1228.

PEOPLE ARE NOT THE PROBLEM, WATCHDOG GROUP PROCLAIMS

Front Royal, VA * The Population Research Institute will this week join with 33 other organizations to set the record straight on population questions. "The public debate over population control has been dominated too long by Malthusian myths of overpopulation," said Steven W. Mosher, President of the Institute and one of the leaders of the coalition. "We intend to point out that fertility rates are everywhere falling, and that many countries are no longer replacing themselves. People are the ultimate resource, and in many parts of the globe they are in short supply, or soon will be." The coalition's proclamation, which ran in Wednesday's Washington Times, was intended to counter World Population Awareness Week, sponsored by the Population Institute of Washington, D.C. "The truth behind the 'population bomb' propaganda is that the population of the world will never double again," said Mosher. "The latest U.N. projections-just released last week-show population peaking at something over 8 billion in 2050, and then beginning an absolute and accelerating decline." "Our proclamation points out that neither food production nor population density are problems on a global scale," Mosher went on. "The headlines of the next century will not concern unfounded fears of overpopulation but the reality of crippling depopulation. "Signatories to the ad include human rights and educational organizations from every continent which share the Institute's belief that development solutions must both recognize human beings' intrinsic worth and respect human rights imperatives. New York's Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and the Washington-based Concerned Women for America joined PRI at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington.

UNICEF and Girl Scouts Support Abortion?

A Catholic lobbying group is "urging families not to let their children collect coins for UNICEF this Halloween," warning them that coins collected for the United Nations Children's Fund may go to fund abortions. The Washington Times reported yesterday that the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, devoted to promoting pro-life policies across the world, takes issue with a U.N.-published field guide "that shows how to perform abortion procedures." The guide, which discusses RU-486 and "some surgical abortion techniques for use in refugee situations," has been endorsed by UNICEF, along with Planned Parenthood and the Girl Scouts. Austin Ruse, director of the CFHRI, said, "The money going to UNICEF could very well be going to support abortion in refugee camps." The UNICEF Halloween program raised $2.2 million last year, with more than 1 million children participating (Pisik, Washington Times, 10/27).

Colorado:Three Medical Professionals Support Pro-life Initiatives

Three medical professionals Tuesday spoke in support of ballot initiatives that would ban partial-birth' abortions and require parental notification for minors seeking abortions. During a news conference, called at the state Capitol by initiative proponents Colorado Pro-Life Alliance, Dr. Amy Johnson, a Denver obstetrician and gynecologist, said that Amendment 11 would ban any "abortion in which the person performing the abortion partially vaginally delivers a living fetus before killing the infant and completing the delivery.'' Several opponents of the measures attended the news conference. "This issue is not about pro-choice or pro-life - we need to decide whether or not we will allow infants within weeks of viability to be delivered in such a gruesome manner,'' Johnson said. In caring for "hundreds of women and fetuses,'' she said "it has never been necessary to kill the baby prior to its delivery.'' Johnson said that in a partial-birth abortion, the baby is pulled out by the legs until just the head remains inside the uterus, the abortionist "takes a scissors and actually drives them into the baby's skull'' and then uses a catheter to suck out the baby's brains. The abortion procedure also poses dangers to the woman, including future premature deliveries, infection, hemorrhage and perforation of the uterus. Even to save a mother's life, partial-birth abortion "would never be the choice of a trained obstetrician gynecologist,'' she said. School nurse Cindy Webb, speaking on parental notification, noted that in public schools, children can't receive medication or treatments "without the written permission of their parents.'' Amendment 12, she said, is not a parental consent bill - only a parental notification bill, because an "abortion is such a lifechanging and potentially life- threatening procedure that parents should be notified before it is done.'' Dr. Kevin Cowperthwaite, a Denver psychiatrist, said parental notification "just makes good medical sense,'' because teens often lack the maturity "to make complex and far-reaching decisions.'' Abortion is a surgical procedure "with risks and important consequences,'' he said. Involving parents can ensure that a "fully informed medical choice is made,'' Cowperthwaite said.
Source: Denver Post

Dutch carry cards that say: Don't kill me, Doctor!

The Netherlands -- More than 10,000 people in Holland have started carrying anti-euthanasia "passports" because they are frightened of being killed prematurely by over-enthusiastic doctors if they fall ill. The move comes as the newly-elected Dutch government presses ahead with a proposal to legalise "assisted suicide" by doctors, the first of its kind in Europe. The Bill is being pushed through despite the government's own surveys showing that Dutch doctors are increasingly practising non-voluntary euthanasia and are ending patients lives without their approval. It is estimated that every year up to 25,000 people die when their treatment is terminated on medical grounds. According to the most recent survey into euthanasia - carried out in 1995 and sponsored by the Dutch government - 23 percent of doctors said that they had ended a patient's life without his or her explicit request. Although euthanasia is technically illegal in Holland, doctors who assist with voluntary euthanasia rarely face prosecution. As a consequence an estimated 3,000 patients die each year after they have specifically requested that their lives be terminated. The "declaration of life" cards, which are being distributed by pro-life groups throughout Holland, carry the words: "I request that no medical treatment be withheld on the grounds that the future quality of my life will be diminished, because I believe that this is not something that human beings can judge. I request that under no circumstances a life-ending treatment be administered because I am of the opinion that people do not have the right to end life." Opponents are concerned that enshrining voluntary euthanasia into law will turn assisted suicide into a fully accepted medical practice. In particular they fear that it will encourage doctors to carry out euthanasia without prior consultation. Under current guidelines, a doctor is required to report all cases of euthanasia to the public prosecutor. But many do not comply, partly because of the stigma of reporting to the public prosecutor's office, but also because they run the risk of prosecution if they are judged to have wrongly applied the euthanasia process. >From next month, however, doctors will report to an advisory committee, comprising medical, ethical and legal experts. Only if the committee is dissatisfied will a case be referred to the public prosecutor. Dr Peggy Norris, the chairman of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life, said: "This is awful. It is the most vulnerable who will be affected. There will be added pressure on patients to think that they are a nuisance to their family and that perhaps it is better to ask the doctor for something and die now rather than later." Helen Watt, a research fellow at the Roman Catholic church-backed Linacre Centre of Healthcare Ethics in London, said: "If something is legally tolerated then people tend to assume it is right. It becomes part of the medical culture." The Dutch Physicians Association said that doctors who oppose voluntary euthanasia are frightened to speak out for fear of losing their jobs. The association, whose predominately Christian membership is against the practice of voluntary euthanasia, has begun telling its 500 members not to mention their views when applying for a job. Dr Krijn Haasnood, the association's spokesman, said: "There is much pressure on doctors to practise euthanasia. Up to now a doctor who did not want to carry out euthanasia could say that it was against the law, but now it will be the right of the patient to request it. It will be part of the job of the doctor. We are going into a new area and we don't know where it will end. It is a total change in the role of the doctor if killing patients becomes part of the job." Anneke Verhoeven, a spokesman for the Lifewish Declaration Foundation, part of the Dutch Patients Association, which produces one of the anti-euthanasia passports, said: "When you are ill, euthanasia seems to be a solution but it is not. There is so much that can be done to ease pain and suffering. Sometimes people too quickly think that the pain is unbearable and that life is no longer worth living."

Pro-Life and other links!

Women & Children First
Global Good News

Did you know that the medical field is using the tissue of aborted babies for experiments and so called health benefits? For excellent information on this subject please check out the link below.

Stop Fetal Testing

PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL CRISIS PREGNANCY CENTER

Great link for real information on Partial-Birth Abortions!