Assisted Suicide

The death of a 90-year-old Columbia woman, which has raised the issue of assisted suicide, was caused by someone putting a plastic bag over her head after she took high levels of drugs, according to the state medical examiner's office.A death certificate obtained yesterday shows that Helen V. Fishback died Sept. 7 because of a "plastic bag secured over [her] head by another person."That death certificate also states that "drug intoxication" contributed to her death. It doesn't specify what drugs.

For the past few weeks, while the country waited to hear who would be nominated to the Supreme Court, a series of lower-court decisions was being laid down, one case after another, like stepping stones, leading directly to the door of the Courthouse.Now, if the president has his way, Judge Stephen G. Breyer will be on the highest bench when one of the most sensitive issues arrives: the issue of doctor-assisted suicide. The question will come bearing all the moral weight and political heat of the issue of abortion.

In a Baltimore neighborhood of simple brick houses, where geraniums edge the lawns in cheery bursts of pink and red, an old woman is dying. On a sweltering summer afternoon, she is in bed, frail and frightened, waiting for her doctor to arrive.A white Mazda pulls up, and the doctor, Timothy Keay, emerges carrying a blue nylon satchel, the modern equivalent of the black bag. Keay, an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Maryland, is a rarity in this impersonal, technological era: a doctor who makes house calls.

WASHINGTON -- Jack Kevorkian's 33rd victim, Rebecca Badger, was just 39 years old.She was, she said, so crippled by the effects of multiple sclerosis that she relied on a wheelchair and had to be dragged by her daughter to the bathroom. She had difficulty with bladder and bowel control and was in constant, unbearable pain. Ms. Badger turned to Jack Kevorkian as an ''angel of mercy'' to free her.On July 9, in a hotel room in Pontiac, Mich., Dr. Kevorkian administered an injection of potassium chloride, and Ms. Badger died, holding her daughter's hand.

Washington. -- Last Monday a judge in Wayne County, Michigan, declared the state law against assisted suicide unconstitutional. In his original ruling, Judge Richard Kaufman drew a distinction between people wishing to commit suicide who have what he termed a ''low quality of life'' and those who have a higher ''quality of life.'' The law could not apply to the former. It could apply to the latter.This is the type of ruling we might expect under some proposed forms of universal health care in which the government decides who should live and who should die based on a formula that determines who is productive and who is a drain on limited government resources.

Cabinet-level position for veterans affairs wins final approvalThe General Assembly gave final approval yesterday to legislation that would create a state Cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs.The measure, which was proposed by Gov. Parris N. Glendening, goes to him for his signature. It would merge state programs for veterans into a single agency, a response to complaints that veterans seeking services are frequently bounced among different offices.The move would bring Maryland's practice in line with that of the federal government, which centralized its veterans programs under a Cabinet department.

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. -- Dr. Jack Kevorkian's opponents are vowing to seek an immediate ban on assisted suicide following his role in the death yesterday of multiple sclerosis victim Elaine Goldbaum of Southfield.A ban enacted late last year doesn't take effect until March 30 and opponents fear Dr. Kevorkian will continue his stepped-up pace in assisting suicides. Ms. Goldbaum, 47, was the sixth person Dr. Kevorkian has helped die during the waiting period and the 12th since June 1990.Dr. Kevorkian has helped as many people die in the past two months as he did in the 2 1/2 years before the Legislature acted.

In the first application of the state's assisted suicide ban, an Anne Arundel County judge found yesterday that the Crofton teen-ager who had a suicide pact with his girlfriend violated that law, but suffered from such severe depression that he is not responsible for his actions. Circuit Judge Pamela L. North rejected defense arguments that the law, sparked by Dr. Jack Kevorkian, applied only to health care workers helping terminally ill patients die. She said that if the General Assembly wanted to cover only assisted suicides of terminally ill people, legislators could have narrowed the law this spring.

The woman whose body was found burned behind Anne Arundel Community College Monday may have committed suicide, county police said yesterday.Lt. Harry Collier, head of the crimes against persons section, said preliminary autopsy reports support a theory that Carol Grace Cline, 50, of the 1200 block of Ritchie Highway in Arnold could have taken her own life. He would not say what those results are.Police will not be sure until toxicology tests are completed, Lieutenant Collier said. Results of those tests are expected in about 10 days, he said.

Jack ''Dr. Death'' Kevorkian struck again this week. Only hours after he assisted in the deaths of two more middle-aged women, Michigan Gov. John Engler signed a law that will ban assisted suicides for 15 months, beginning March 30.But don't underestimate the accomplishments of the doctor who has bedeviled Michigan authorities since the June day in 1990 when he helped an Oregon woman to kill herself in the back of his van. After all, the same law the governor...