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Leaders from around the globe will share strategies for saving lives.
The first International Symposium on Euthanasia, "Current Issues and Future Directions," is set for Nov. 30-Dec. 1 in Toronto. It is being organized by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of Canada, and will allow leaders to discuss strategies for stopping the euthanasia movement.
"The conference is going to bring together leaders and people concerned about euthanasia from all around the world," said Rita Marker, executive director of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. "We definitely have to be concerned about what is happening everywhere."
Marker pointed out that assisted-suicide supporters from Oregon traveled to Britain to study its policies before Oregon passed its own law in 1997.
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In addition to Marker, the list of speakers includes: Dr. William Toffler, national director of Physicians for Compassionate Care in Portland, Ore.; Diane Coleman, founder of NOT DEAD YET, a leading disability rights group in the U.S.; Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition; and Bobby Schindler, brother of Terri Schiavo.
International Conference Tackles Assisted Suicide
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TAVARES - A doctor best known for performing the autopsy of Terri Schiavo has been named interim medical examiner for Lake and four other counties.
Pinellas-Pasco County Medical Examiner Jon R. Thogmartin, who also worked on cases involving victims of the ValuJet crash in the Everglades, will complete the term of Dr. Steven Cogswell.
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Since the resignations, medical examiners from Thogmartin's office in Pinellas County have filled in at the Leesburg office, which employs about 20 people. Thogmartin will oversee both the Pinellas-Pasco office and the District 5 operation.
In the highly emotional Schiavo case, which sparked a passionate debate about end-of-life wishes, Thogmartin denied rival requests by the brain-damaged woman's parents and by her husband to allow their own pathologists to observe the autopsy.
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