Assisted suicide morally vague

Jack Kevorkian, for those of you who don’t know, is a controversial doctor who gained… Jack Kevorkian, for those of you who don’t know, is a controversial doctor who gained notoriety during the late 1990s for assisting in the euthanasia of Thomas Youk, a crime for which he was charged with second-degree murder. According to Kevorkian, he has helped more than 130 people in ending their lives, a practice which he considered ethical and merciful. And on Friday, June 1, Kevorkian was released on parole.

Kevorkian is probably one of the most notorious and divisive figures of the 1990s. His unorthodox and unapproved methods and vocal campaign for a patient’s right to die alienated both sides of the debate and left many outraged or disgusted.

His actions directly contributed to the passage of a bill into law allowing doctor-assisted suicide in Oregon known as the Death With Dignity Act, and probably influenced the 1996 decision of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a terminally ill patient’s right to assisted suicide. Kurt Vonnegut even used him as a central figure in one of his books, titled “God Bless You, Doctor Kevorkian.”

Now, I’m not going to get into the whole “right to die” debate – at least, not directly. Instead, I’m going to point out a few basic facts that I think are relevant to the discussion.

First, everybody dies. No matter what. When, where, and how might vary, but the basic fact of the matter is that if you were born, you will die. Period.

Second, some people don’t want to live any more. It’s a sad fact, but it’s true. More than 30,500 people in the United States alone last year committed suicide, according to the American Medical Association, and thousands more probably attempted it. You can make whatever judgments about these people that you want; I’m just saying that that’s what happened.

Third, a person’s life is his own business. According to U.S. law, in most cases, nobody has any right to infringe upon your life or liberties unless by your actions you’re infringing on someone else’s. I think that’s a pretty good rule myself, and I don’t have any problems with it, but it’s where this whole situation gets all muddy.

Jack Kevorkian, by helping his patients die, may have breached a barrier between the choice of the patient and the choice of the doctor. Nobody can say for sure if what he did was right or wrong, because nobody really knows what right or wrong is in a case like Kevorkian’s.

However, let’s assume for a minute that all of the patients whom Kevorkian assisted in their deaths had instead been seeing other doctors. Most, if not all, of the patients were terminally ill and on medication or life support. Again, according to U.S. law, a patient has the right to refuse treatment even if their refusal could hasten their death.

In a way, it’s like a different sort of euthanasia – the doctor is assisting in the death of a patient by not providing treatment, even if it’s because of the law. Kevorkian, by actively and aggressively helping his patients die with deadly drug cocktails and carbon monoxide poisoning, just took things one step further than any other doctor.

And it’s not like his patients were unmotivated; in every case Kevorkian had a hand in, the patient sought him out. They could just as easily have refused treatment or died by their own hand in some other way, but Kevorkian offered them something nobody else could easily provide: a quick and relatively painless death. Instead of wasting away in pain from lack of medication or a messy, traumatic suicide at their own hands, they chose – in Oregon’s legal wording – death with dignity.

I cannot endorse Kevorkian’s actions. In my mind, it’s absolutely clear that he broke the law. Beside being in possession of illegal drugs and operating a medical practice without a license, he quite clearly provided the means for as many as 130 people to kill themselves, making him an accessory in every case.

However, whether or not Kevorkian was morally correct is another story altogether, and one on which I can’t comment. Like I said earlier, I think that every person’s life is her own business, and the consequences of those choices are that person’s to deal with.

It’s important to remember that Kevorkian’s patients were all fully aware and consenting in their decisions and were not in vegetative states like Terry Schiavo. The only really gray area is whether or not Kevorkian had a right to help them, and that’s an issue people are still fighting about today and will be for a long time to come. The last fact is that he’s free, God bless him or not.

E-mail Richard at rab53@pitt.edu and tell him why your ambiguous, morally charged opinion is better than his.