Kevorkian's actions cheapen valuable gift of life

Calvin Thigpen

dm staff columnist

They say that a man who chooses to defend himself in a court of law has a fool for an attorney. Never could this have been more true than in the murder trial of Dr. Jack Kevorkian in Pontiac, Michigan, last week.

Kevorkian, the renowned assisted suicide doctor of Oakland County in Michigan, was convicted of second-degree murder for the lethal injection of a combination of chemicals and drugs into the body of 52-year-old Thomas Youk, who was suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease.

For Kevorkian, the courtroom is no strange place. Prior to last week's court battle, Kevorkian had been acquitted three times and been granted one mistrial for the assisted suicides of Thomas Hyde, Ali Khalili, Merian Fredericks, Sherry Miller, Marjorie Wantz and Loretta Peabody. This time, however, Dr. Kevorkian will face a minimum sentence of 10 to 25 years in prison or a maximum sentence of life in jail, pending Kevorkian's imminent appeal.

Kevorkian claims that he will starve himself to death in jail; that is, if he goes to jail. One of Kevorkian's lawyers, who was forced to take on the role of adviser once Kevorkian chose to defend himself, believes that Kevorkian is using this case to push his cause to the U.S. Supreme Court. Only time will tell. Regardless, this is all part of Kevorkian's plan, in his own words, to "advance" the debate over what is known as euthanasia.

Euthanasia is terminating life at the explicit request of a patient. Physician-assisted suicide is providing the patient with the medicine to kill himself or herself. Dr. Kevorkian's injection of Thomas Youk is murder. But Kevorkian, although he has admitted that he stepped over the line from assisted suicide to administering the lethal injection himself in Youk's case, claims that this is not murder. In his opening arguments, Kevorkian stated that "my intent was not to murder Tom Youk, and the evidence will show that."

Kevorkian claims that this is, instead, a "medical service." Faye Girsh, who runs the Hemlock Society in support of Kevorkian, said, "I do believe he is very caring about his patients. He does not kill everyone who knocks at his door. He has his criteria."

Apparently, those criteria are lax enough to qualify the assisted death of 130 individuals since 1990, when Kevorkian's first patient, Janet Adkins, took her life with his intravenous drug machine. Among the reasons for Kevorkian's patients wanting to die are chronic pelvic pain, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and Lou Gehrig's disease. But it is not known whether all of Kevorkian's patients were terminally ill or in intractable pain; some are believed to have been perfectly healthy. Kevorkian has used carbon monoxide poisoning and lethal injections in his work, invoking his motto "To Die With Dignity" to legitimize taking the life of someone who might be dependent someday.

There is little dignity, though, in what Kevorkian has done with his patients' bodies once they are lifeless. Kevorkian has left bodies of some of his patients in vans and motel rooms and has even dropped off some bodies at emergency room wards with notes attached to push his agenda into the public eye. Kevorkian videotaped his murder of Youk and delivered it himself to "60 Minutes" and dared prosecutors to charge him with murder. His goal was to challenge 12 strangers (the jury) to decide whether people have the right to die.

What Kevorkian has attempted to do, according to him and his followers, is to make death a right of every individual. In reality, he has taken one of the greatest gifts given to mankind and made it seem worthless. Kevorkian is doing to life what so many other people are doing to the greatest institutions of society. He is making it cheap. His arrogance has led him to assume an authority that no one on earth possesses.

Diane Coleman, founder of the Not Dead Yet society that opposes Kevorkian, is a prime example that the gift of life is not one for us to determine when to reject. At age 45, Coleman, who has been wheelchair-bound since age 11 with spinal muscular atrophy, has earned a degree in law from the University of California, has worked as a lawyer for the state for seven years and runs the Progress Center for Independent Living in Forest Park, Illinois. One member of Coleman's organization, 43-year-old Kay Wright, best described the plight of those who wanted to live despite being terminally ill: "Society is putting upon us that if we really care for our families, we'd be for assisted suicide. All we hear about are people who want to die. It gets us so discouraged. But we need love to feel important."

That's a message that all of us can take to heart.

Calvin Thigpen is a senior math and chemistry major from Jackson.