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State Attorney General Pressing on with Assisted Suicide Case

The state attorney general shows no sign of budging from the prosecution of a woman who allegedly helped her elderly father end his life in Schuylkill County.

Barbara Mancini of Philadelphia is being charged with a felony count after she admitted to handing her 93-year-old father, a hospice patient, enough morphine to end his life.
    
An end-of-life planning advocacy group is asking the AG’s office to drop the case.

The president of Compassion and Choices, Barbara Coombs Lee, said that while Pennsylvania law makes assisting in a suicide a crime, she sees a difference between suicide and ending one’s pain.

"Is a 93-year-old man who is days away from dying and is in agony, would you describe him as suicidal if he has a yearning to end his suffering?" she said.

The attorney general’s office, which was referred to the case by the Schuylkill County district attorney, has declined comment due to a gag order issued by the judge.

A trial hasn’t yet been scheduled.