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Wednesday, October 10, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Students should consider living wills, speaker says
By Karen Park
Kansan staff writer
College students need to think seri-
ously about drafting living walls, said Myra Christopher, executive director of the Midwest Bioethics Center, last night at a meeting of the KU
Student Bioethics Club.
Christopher spoke to about 30 people at the Walnut Room in the Kansas Union about the Nancy Cruzan case and the need for a living will, a document that allows a person to state in advance his or her wishes regarding the use of life-sustaining procedures.
Cruzan, whose car skidded off an ice Missouri road in 1983, did not have such a will. Cruzan remains in a rehabilitation clue. In a Missouri rehabilitation clue.
Cruzan's parents and friends testified that she had expressed that if she could not live a normal life, she would not want to live, but that was not enough evidence for the U.S. Supreme Court.
A June 25 Supreme Court ruling stated there was no clear and convincing evidence that Cruzan had authorized the termination of treat-
Christopher said that traditionally, families of victims like Cruzan had been allowed to make the decision to withhold life-support systems.
"But there is no legal standing for that in Kansas or Missouri," she said.
The Supreme Court stated that Missouri had an unqualified interest in life that was more important than Cruzan's autonomy.
Christopher said that Missouri did not handle the Cruzan case well.
She said Missouri Attorney General William Webster and others treated the case as a "political football."
"This is an issue that has to do in my opinion with fundamentally a moral issue," she said. "We do need guidance from the courts on this issue, but we do not need them to decide individual cases."
But Kansas and Missouri do have living will statutes, Christopher said. Living will allow health care providers to withhold medical treatment.
She said college students needed to think about living wills because some students drove while intoxicated, putting them at risk of getting into accidents and situations such as Cruzan's.
"You could fill out a will tonight, and it would still be valid when you are 94 years old," she said.
Christopher distributed living wills to people at the meeting.
The will she distributed was a joint project between the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association and the Midwest Bioethics Center.
Christopher said the wills were free and could be obtained by calling or writing either the Bioethics Center or the Bar Association.
She said the Bioethics Center received 14,000 telephone calls and letters about living with women the month before Supreme Court rulked on the Cruse case.
Students who live in states other than Kansas or Missouri can fill out the living will provided by the Bioethics Center, Christopher said. But she said that they should also fill out a living will in their home state.
Libya implicated in bombing
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Libyan intelligence agents may have had a hand in the 1988 terrorist bombing of a Pam Ari group in Scotland, a published report stated.
Fragments of the detonator from the bomb that destroyed Flight 103 match bomb timers that were seized from two Libyan intelligence agents and released. The Pan Am plane was downed, the New York Times reported today.
The Boeing 747 blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1888, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground.
The Times said that U.S. officials involved in the investigation of the Pan Am bombing had confirmed the
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that they still believed Iran commissioned the attack on the Pan Am jet en route from London to New York, in revenge for the accidental downing of an Iranian passenger jet by a U.S. Navy warship in the Persian Gulf.
report of a Libyan link after a report earlier this week in the French magazine L'Express.
Terrorism experts and several media investigations have pointed to the Syria-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command as the group that carried out the bombing.
A possible Libyan connection was first reported by CBS News in February.
ary 1989. The network said that PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril cleared the operation with Syrian intelligence and had the full backing of the Libyan secret service; Jibril denied involvement in the bombing.
The U.S. officials told the Times that investigators now believed Jibril paid agents of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhaf to carry out the Fan Amr attack, an operation thatern intelligence agents had penetrated his own operation.
The officials said that investigators had not yet determined how the bomb was built and smuggled onto the jet. The authorities are the jets of the Libyan involved in the plot.
Wichita-based units called to gulf
The Associated Press
WICHTIA — Three units of the Wichita-based 89th U.S. Army Reserve Command will be activated to support Operation Desert Shield, command officials were told yesterday.
Members of the units are to report
One of the units is from Kansas, the other two from Nebraska. They are the 842nd Quartermaster Company of Kansas City, Kan., the 172nd Transportation Company of Omaha, Neb., and the 1012th Genetic Support Unit.
petroleum storage facilities, has an authorized strength of less than 100.
to their home stations tomorrow to get ready for initial assignment to Fort Riley, Kan. Members of advance parties from each unit should arrive there Friday, with the main body of the 1012th reporting on Sunday, the 942nd on Monday and the 172nd on Tuesday.
The 172nd, with an authorized strength of 200, provides motor transport of dry and refrigerated cargo. The 1012th operates a general supply truck. The 842nd strength of 150. The 842nd, establishes and operates temporary
The 80th Command has nearly 6,000 reservists assigned to 101 units in 41 cities in Kansas and Nebraska from Kansas. The command was activated earlier.
13e 13th Quartiermaster Detachment of Great Bend already has left Fort Riley for assignment at an unclosed location. Still at Fort Riley are members of the 129th Transportation Company of Osage City and the 129th Transportation Detachment of Emporia.
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