Pro-Life News in Brief

By Liz Townsend

French Health Minister Admits to Euthanasia

The debate in Europe over euthanasia has spread to France, as Health Minister Bernard Kouchner told a Netherlands newspaper that he injected patients with fatal doses of morphine in wartime Vietnam and Lebanon.

"I have practiced euthanasia on several different occasions," Kouchner told Vrij Nederland. "When people were suffering too much and I knew they were going to die, I helped them. I gave injections to people, never pills, injections with lots of morphine."

Kouchner is one of the founder of Doctors without Borders, which sends doctors worldwide to help in war-torn or disaster areas.

Kouchner said his actions were different from the physician-assisted deaths of terminally ill patients that are now legal in the Netherlands. "This was not at all euthanasia in the sense of death as a choice, a deliberate death, a life taken ... at the patient's request," he said in an interview on French radio, according to Reuters.

When Kouchner took office in April, he spoke about beginning a debate in France about euthanasia, Reuters reported. But he denied that there are any current plans for legalization. "There is no question of legislating for the moment," Kouchner said, according to Reuters. "One must actually protect the ill."

However, Kouchner also left open the possibility of allowing some forms of euthanasia. "Euthanasia contradicts medical ethics. Doctors exist to protect life, not to end it," he told Vrij Nederland. "But if someone says he wants to die, society has to take that into account."

Abortionist Reports to Prison
Florida abortionist James Scott Pendergraft IV reported to prison July 26 to serve his 46-month sentence for attempted extortion, conspiracy, and mail fraud.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals announced July 24 that it would not allow Pendergraft to remain free while his conviction is appealed, according to the Ocala Star-Banner.

Pendergraft and his associate Michael Spielvogel were convicted February 1 for fraudulently accusing a Marion County official of threatening them and later demanding millions of dollars from the county, the Star-Banner reported.

Spielvogel began serving his 41-month sentence July 10.

Pendergraft's five Florida clinics will continue to perform abortions while he is in jail. "He has an extensive corporation set up, and nothing is going to change," spokeswoman Marti Mackenzie told the Star-Banner. "He has doctors in place who have been working in the clinics a long time."

Missouri Man Gets Life Sentence for Killing Pregnant Woman and Children
Richard DeLong will spend the rest of his life in prison after he was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder for killing Erin Vanderhoef and her four children, one of which was still in her womb, in their Springfield, Missouri, home. DeLong, the father of the unborn baby, killed Vanderhoef and her childrenon January 19, 1999, with the help of another girlfriend and a friend, according to the Springfield News-Leader.

Called the worst mass murder in the history of southwest Missouri, the deaths of Erin Vanderhoef, 36; Jimmy Vanderhoef, 11; Chris Franklin, 10; Darlene Vanderhoef, 8; and Hannah, a full-term unborn baby, stunned the community. Prosecutors charged DeLong with five counts of first-degree murder because Missouri law states that human life starts at conception, Greene County Prosecutor Darrell Moore told the News-Leader. "Since she was carrying an unborn child, then we have a fifth victim," he said.

According to trial testimony, DeLong's friend Bobby Lingle went with Vanderhoef to buy donuts and coffee. While they were gone, DeLong and girlfriend Stacie Leffingwell killed the older children in their bedrooms, strangling them with items found in the home, including a cable from one of the boys' Nintendo game, the News-Leader reported.

When Vanderhoef returned, she was "hog- tied," bound with a cord around her neck and feet. "He rigged it so she would kill herself," Moore said at the trial, according to the News-Leader. "She would strangle herself, struggling to keep her feet up."

DeLong could have received the death penalty. The defense characterized him as a methamphetamine-addicted, HIV-positive, mentally ill man tormented by abuse in childhood, the News-Leader reported. The prosecution stressed the planning that went into the murders and the cruelty of the deaths.

The jury, who convicted DeLong of first-degree murder June 28 after four hours of deliberation, chose to sentence him to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Leffingwell and Lingle were also charged in the case. Leffingwell died of an AIDS-related illness in October 1999. Lingle's trial will begin in January.