For the week of November 27th, 1998

The Doctor is charged

Why is he smiling? Because he wants to be tried for attempted suicide. He wants to be tried for homicide. This is because he knows that this will cause the medical, political, and religious communities of the U.S. to look at themselves and see what needs to be changed.

There is a little oath that all doctors in the U.S. have to say, which is the Hypocratic Oath. To summarize, doctors are promising to help patients using whatever ethical means necessary, to help them ease pain. But, they are also promising to follow the patients' wishes that if they do not want life support or surgery, they won't receive it. That is a person's right. Now, what Dr. Jack is asking is for the governments to try to draw the line on what is ethically right or wrong in this matter.

First of all, the charge of homicide can work this time because he actually released the poisons into the patient's body. Every other time, he gave that to the patient, hence the term "assisted suicide." He has been charged numerous times for homicide, but none of them stuck because no state had a law against assisted suicide. Michigan now has such a law, which is where the euthanasia took place.

Next, the reason why he wants to be charged is so that many questions will come up, such as: is assisted suicide homicide? Is euthanasia homicide? Are either options ethical for a terminally ill patient who a doctor knows will suffer with the disease? If a doctor tries to save a patient's life and succeeds but uses methods a patient directly asked against, can that patient sue the doctor? Does a human have the right to his own life, which also gives him the right to end it? Is it ethical for doctors then to even help patients live if they should not interfere by either cutting short or extending life?

There are no easy answers to any of these questions. A person will use his own experiences, ethics, and religion to create answers.

Personally, I am not against euthanasia or assisted suicide. After all, a doctor's job is to help the patient, but if that patient is going to die yay or nay, is it ethical to let him suffer? Yet on the same token, is it ethical to use a videotape of a patient dying as a trump card to get a charge slapped against him, like Kervorkian did?

No, it is not ethical for Kervorkian to use the man as a way to push the issue. He went a bit too far on this one, however, these questions need to be answered, now. More and more, people want to die for whatever reason, and suffering is the best reason. The doctors may have sworn to do such things in their Oath, and if that is decided, the country is going to be split down the middle or the Oath may be revised. Or maybe Kervokian will go to jail. All these questions will be sidestepped (again) and that will be the end of it. Yet this subject will never end as long as people want to die to end the pain. As long as there is demand, there will always be a supplier.

This may seem like a tired point for many, since all of you already know where you stand. I'm not aiming this at you then, I'm aiming at those who are apathetic to the topic. I am asking these questions to make you draw your own lines. You have to pick a side. You have to say what is right and wrong, ethical or not. You have to answer them because this is happening next door and this could happen here just as easily. So you tell me, where do you stand?

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