Right-to-die group Final Exit Network indicted by Minnesota jury

[longnecker]

• (AP) HASTINGS, Minnesota - A grand jury has indicted a U.S. right-to-die group and several members for their actions in the 2007 suicide of a suburban woman, prosecutors announced Monday.

The 17-count indictment charges the medical director of Final Exit Network, Lawrence Egbert of Baltimore, and three other officials with felony counts of assisting suicide and interference with a death scene, a gross misdemeanor. It also charged the group in its corporate capacity.
"This investigation and prosecution is not a politically motivated attack on the right-to-die movement," prosecutor James Backstrom said at a news conference. "Rather, it is an effort to bring to justice a corporation and several of its officers and volunteers who we are alleging advised, encouraged or assisted Doreen Dunn in the taking of her own life on May 30, 2007, in violation of Minnesota law."
Officials with First Exit Network have said they acted within the law and within their free speech rights when they counseled Dunn. She was 57 when she committed suicide at her Apple Valley home after suffering through a decade of intense, chronic pain following a medical procedure that went wrong. She died of asphyxia from inhaling helium, which Backstrom said is the method the group generally recommends.
Minnesota law prohibits aiding, advising or encouraging a suicide, and Backstrom said he's obligated to enforce that.
"If the people of our state wish to authorize assisted suicide, this should be done through clearly defined laws enacted by the Minnesota Legislature with proper restrictions and requirements to ensure the protection of a terminally ill patient and with the direct involvement of the patient's physician and family," he said. read more
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-...ctionContent.1

[childOfLacroix]

My dream is to have the same end-of-life choices that domestic pets--beings that don't even have Constitutional rights--currently enjoy.