ABSTRACT
In the United States over the last two years, tremendous changes have taken place in the public debate over assisted suicide and euthanasia. We have seen the so-called “suicide doctor” Jack Kevorkian-the Michigan pathologist who since 1990 has participated in 20 suicides of chronically, though not necessarily terminally ill persons-tried in a court of law, and acquitted of the charge of assisted suicide (New York Times 1992). Perhaps more importantly, we have seen him tried in the court of public opinion which has expressed massive support for the principle of helping fatally ill persons to die.
