Another episode of the Jack Kevorkian show has ended, this time with "Dr. Death" guilty as charged and facing 10 to 25 years in prison. After three acquittals and a mistrial, the assisted suicide advocate has finally gotten what he deserves.
For what it's worth, I support the principle of assisted suicide. No terminally ill patient should have to spend his last months and years wasting away from his disease, trapped inside a body that is gradually failing him. To condemn an individual to that slow suffering would be far crueler than ending that suffering for him.
I've always found it absurd that those who advocate the right to life would withhold the right to end it. Every individual should have the right to do whatever she wants with her life, even if that includes cutting that life short. What's more, if someone afflicted with a terminal illness wishes to end a painful existence but is so enfeebled that she cannot take her own life, she should be able to seek assistance in doing so, without placing one who would help her end her suffering at the mercy of the legal system.
Kevorkian claims that's what he's trying to do, that all he wants is to end the suffering of the terminally ill. Where he has gone wrong, however, is in turning the death of terminally ill patients into both a political crusade and a publicity stunt.
In Kevorkian's latest assisted suicide, that of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) patient Thomas Youk, he not only administered the lethal injection but also videotaped it and aired the video on CBS's newsmagazine show, 60 Minutes. Showing this act on national television was nothing more than a crass ploy to garner attention and sympathy for his cause, an affront to the solemnity and dignity with which death should be treated. In short, Kevorkian is making light of death and of the suffering of his patients.
Worse, the recent politicization of euthanasia casts doubt on the purity of Kevorkian's motives. He claims his only goal is to end the suffering of terminally ill patients. Yet with the courtroom battle in which Kevorkian has been embroiled over the legality of assisted suicide and the media attention his antics have gained him, each patient whose life he takes is also one more figure in Kevorkian's political crusade to legalize assisted suicide. The patients become unwitting martyrs for a cause.
All of this raises the question of whether Kevorkian is really only in this to ease the pain of the sick and dying, or whether he is now taking the lives of his patients to prove a point. If his motives have indeed gone from compassion to activism, his actions cross the line between assisted suicide and murder-which is in fact the crime of which he was found guilty. For that, and for making a show of death to glorify himself and his cause, Kevorkian deserves to be punished.
I have no qualms about the verdict itself. What I take issue with is the reasoning behind the sentence.
When Judge Jessica Cooper delivered the sentence, she denounced Kevorkian for believing he was above the law, asserting that, "No one is above the law, sir. No one." Kevorkian may not be above the law, but as any legal scholar should know, our nation's body of law is not a static one. Precedents have been overturned when a law has been deemed unjust or unconstitutional. Stare decisis is not the be-all and end-all of our legal system. And sometimes, a little civil disobedience is necessary to reiterate this point.
In declaring lawlessness to be the central focus of the case, Cooper not only ignored the dynamic nature of law and its interpretation but also shifted debate away from the central issue at hand. She told Kevorkian during the sentencing that, "This trial is not about the political and moral correctness of euthanasia." That's where Cooper is dead wrong. Assisted suicide will remain a contentious issue, holding a tenuous grip on shaky moral ground, until its legality is decisively ruled on in our nation's highest court, and perhaps even afterwards. Until then, every euthanasia trial will in fact be about its political and moral correctness, no matter what any judge says.
Yvonne Krywyj is a Trinity senior and assistant sports editor of The Chronicle.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.