"Dr. Death" Fighting for His Life

By D. Allan Kerr, Seacoastonline.com, Jan. 25, 2006

Editorial

It seems bizarre to me that while physicians in Oregon are legally permitted to help terminally ill patients end their lives, Jack Kevorkian remains in a Michigan prison, at age 77, for providing the same service.

I have to admit, I hadn't even realized Kevorkian was still behind bars until the issue of physician-assisted suicide resurfaced last week with the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Oregon's Death with Dignity Act. Kevorkian, of course, is the guy most associated with the term "physician-assisted suicide" — he practically inspired it. (Along with his famous nickname of Dr. Death.)

And now, while the highest court in the land debates over the procedure, and while the governor of California sheepishly defers to his state's voters to decide whether it should be legal there, and while Oregon's legislators have determined that such a practice is necessary, Kevorkian is serving a 10-to-25-year prison term for helping a man with Lou Gehrig's disease die with a last trace of dignity.

To refresh your memory, Dr. Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree murder in 1999 for administering a lethal injection to Thomas Youk, who was still mentally competent even though his body was failing him. Youk had decided he wanted to die rather than simply wither away from this brutal disease, and Kevorkian helped him.

Now it must be said that Kevorkian practically begged to be sent to prison. He was then — and probably still is — America's most famous advocate for assisted suicide and he wanted the practice to be accepted by the general population. He videotaped Youk's suicide and his role in it, then allowed the video to be aired by the TV news program "60 Minutes" while publicly challenging Michigan officials to prosecute him. They did. Kevorkian had been acquitted on three other occasions of similar charges (he's claimed to have assisted in the suicides of about 130 people) but this time, defending himself, he was convicted.

What Kevorkian did was borne out of compassion, not malice. He was sought out by suffering people who wanted to end their lives peacefully and with some sense of serenity, people who had nowhere else to turn. He provided assistance when others would not.

Dr. Death has repeatedly sought to appeal his sentence during the nearly seven years he's spent behind bars. He was denied parole just three days before this past Christmas. He will be 78 years old in May. He has hepatitis C and his lawyer says Kevorkian may not survive until his parole eligibility in 2007. The good doctor told the Daily Oakland Press back in 2004 that he expected to die in prison.

He's currently serving time in minimum-security Thumb Correctional Facility in Lapeer, Mich. But in spite of his age, and the fact that he had no previous criminal record, Kevorkian at one point had to serve time in a maximum-security prison. His attorney, Mayer Morgenroth, has told the media Kevorkian should have been released after two years and is calling his client a political prisoner.

And yet, by media accounts, about 240 people in Oregon have sought and received physician assistance in ending their suffering. Even the Bush administration, which challenged the 1994 Oregon law before the Supreme Court, was merely seeking to strip participating physicians of their medical licenses rather than throwing them behind bars. We can sit here all week and debate about states' rights, but it still kills me (sorry) that someone in, say, Washington state, can face prosecution for helping someone dying from cancer end his life, but can do so legally by crossing into a neighboring state.

I honestly don't know if euthanasia is right or wrong. I have no medical background whatsoever and no one close to me has ever been at such a point. But it seems to me the only people who can debate the issue with validity are the terminally ill patients who have to cope daily with pain and the humiliation of not being able to look after yourself anymore. I don't imagine I'd want to cling to life if I had to have other people wipe my bedridden butt a couple of times a day, but who's to say — maybe I'd want to cherish every moment I could with my loved ones before passing on to the great unknown. I'm sure it goes against the fiber of many physicians to help patients end their lives when they are ill, since the physician's essential purpose is to keep these patients alive and as comfortable as possible, but I also imagine it's sometimes hard to say no.

In the meantime, while Kevorkian sits forgotten in prison the debate he brought to the forefront rages on anew. Just this week in Washington, D.C., a poll conducted by a TV station there found that 50 percent of the city's residents supported the legalization of physician-assisted suicide, while 39 percent were opposed. On the opposite coast, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Tuesday he would leave it to voters to decide whether California would follow Oregon as the second state to let terminally ill patients seek suicide assistance from their doctors.

In fact, Big Arnold didn't even dare to voice his opinion on the matter. "It's irrelevant what I think about this because I would never want to force my opinion on something like that," he said during a press lunch.

California's Legislature is already considering a similar bill, called the Compassionate Care Act. Oregon's Death with Dignity Act allows doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill but mentally capable patients with six months or fewer to live, who have chosen to end it all themselves. In 2000, Maine voters rejected an assisted suicide bill by a narrow 51-to-49 percent vote. After the Supreme Court's ruling last week, other states are expected to consider such measures as well.

And Jack Kevorkian, the guy who forced us to face the issue in the first place, is an old man living out his days behind bars.

D. Allan Kerr doubts he would have the guts to end his own life under any circumstance other than Schwarzenegger's ascension to the Oval Office. Kerr may be reached at the_culling@hotmail.com.

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