Jack Kevorkian
Ben Favier
Theology
Mr. Sciuto
May 11, 2005
Advances in medical technology have led to a growing debate on physician assisted suicide and euthanasia. The issue lies in the argument over who has the right to die or kill and when can they exercise that authority. Jack Kevorkian pioneered physician assisted suicide by taking the initiative and aiding those seeking a way out of the pain they felt. By examining Jack Kevorkian�s life and philosophy from an academic, religious, and patient, standpoint we will posses the knowledge on which an informed moral decision can be reached.
In order to identify completely with the issues presented by Jack Kevorkian we must describe Jack Kevorkian�s background and define the terms related to Euthanasia. Jack Kevorkian was born on May 28, 1929 in Pontiac Michigan the son of immigrants who migrated after World War 1 destroyed their homeland. He advanced quickly through high school and college becoming a medical school graduate of the University of Michigan and specializing in pathology in only 7 years(Frontline Website). A Pathologist, according to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, is a person who interprets the changing of the bodily fluids and tissue in a body due to disease and then delivers a diagnosis. During his residency, the period similar to apprenticeship in which a doctor transforms what he knows into everyday practice, as a pathologist he earned his nickname Dr. Death because of an article he wrote in 1956. The article called �The Fundus Oculi and the Determination of Death� in which by photographing the eyes of a dead person he claimed one could determine the time of death. He was rejected from his residency in 1958 because of a report he gave in Washington D.C. advocating organ donation and experimentation for people on death row. However it was not until the 1980�s that Jack Kevorkian began to publish his position on Euthanasia and ethics. In 1987 he began to advertise himself as being a �death counselor�(Frontline Website). The term Euthanasia is interpreted in two ways, active and passive euthanasia. Active euthanasia is the actual killing of a patient to end their suffering while passive euthanasia lets people die by omission, allowing the person to die without medical treatment that could have saved the person. Both are criticized because in both cases the patient is killed in the presence of a doctor. In Physician assisted suicide a doctor provides the means with which the patient can kill himself or herself in a clean and painless fashion. If we believe that killing is morally wrong in our country then it logically follows that we should not allow doctors, whose Hippocratic Oath makes them swear to never harm a patient, to kill a patient(Paris p11). However people have challenged this notion because of the intense suffering and depression of the terminally ill. Jack Kevorkian brought this issue into the limelight through his controversial actions. On June 4, 1990 Kevorkian used his suicide machine in his Volkswagen van on Janet Adkins a 54 year old woman suffering from Alzheimer�s in a park. Kevorkian�s suicide machine was a simple device that relied on three drugs, a harmless intravenous drip of saline solution, a powerful anesthetic that would put the patient in a coma, and then a lethal dose of Potassium chloride which causes a fatal heart attack. He named his machine the Thanatron which means �death machine in Greek(Frontline Website). The courts reacted to this act by forbidding Kevorkian to aid in any more suicides however the murder charge was dropped. However Kevorkian continues by aiding Marjorie Wantz and Sherry Miller in committing suicide by the thanatron and also by breathing carbon monoxide through a facemask. Again Michigan�s lower courts found Kevorkian innocent. However this time they would suspend Kevorkian�s physicians license. After three more assisted suicides, legislation finally passed in Michigan placing a ban on assisted suicide. The ban was to take effect March 30th 1993. Yet before the law could take affect Kevorkian aided in the death of Hugh Gale prompting the governor of Michigan, John Engler, to declare assisted suicide a four year felony. He is dragged into court again for the death of Tomas Hyde a 30 year old man with Alzheimer�s who is found in Kevorkian�s van yet barely a month later and only hours after leaving court he aids Donald O�Keefe end his life. While in jail Kevorkian fasts and refuses to post bond and again is acquitted as the lower court ruled that assisted suicide was a constitutional right. In 1994 three major events occurred in the assisted suicide debate. First, the ban on assisted suicide in Michigan was struck down by the court of appeals. Second, Oregon legalized assisted suicide with its Death with Dignity act. Finally Michigan�s state legislature overruled the court of appeals and declares assisted suicide illegal under common law. By 1996 Kevorkian had participated in 46 assisted suicides and San Francisco had also declared that mentally competent terminally ill patients had a right to physician assisted suicide. Because of the ban being reinstated as constitutional, Kevorkian was placed on trial for four suicides yet he was acquitted of all four. In 1997 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state governments had the right to ban doctor assisted suicide. March 14, 1998 Kevorkian reached his 100th assisted suicide before the fall when the ban on assisted suicide went into effect. The public in Michigan also rejected assisted suicide even for the terminally ill(Frontline Website). In November of 1998 Kevorkian presented a video tape of himself in active euthanasia to the television show �60 minutes�. The tape was aired on National television and created widespread debate and controversy as Kevorkian had wanted. He wanted to spur the United States into making a solid stance on Euthanasia and doctor assisted suicide. Witnessing the death of Tomas Youk by lethal injection turned public favor further against him. America however did respond, and in a different way than he anticipated. He was tried found guilty of second degree murder because he was the vehicle of lethal injection in the killing of Youk (Don). An interesting aspect about Jack Kevorkian�s practice was that economics and monetary concerns were never considered or mentioned in all the right to die documents, interviews, and decisions. The absence of any money concerns shows that Kevorkian did not perform assisted suicide in order to relieve a burden from society but to relieve a burden from the patients. This shows Kevorkian really believed that what he was doing was right and that the legality of doctor assisted suicide didn�t matter to him, all he wanted to do was to end peoples suffering.
The Catholic Church�s position on all forms of Euthanasia and doctor assisted suicide is presented in its Right to Life campaign. The Catholic Church believes that life at every stage is sacred and needs equal protection under the law. In his papal encyclical Evangelium Vitea Pope John Paul II said that politicians have a �grave and clear obligation to oppose� laws that compromise the right to life. However the Church does allow a patient to refuse treatment because the results of the treatment would be too adverse or burdensome. Yet many fear Catholics in the U.S. will respond as they do to abortion, allowing circumstances and moral relativism to justify their own acts(Hyde p6). The Catholic Church is trying also to change the general population�s view of death. Many see death as something to be feared and conquered when in reality the Church stresses that it is a natural transition where one submits himself or herself to the will of God(Paris p11).
Patients of Jack Kevorkian saw him as a God-send. He was there to accomplish for them what they had been hoping would occur, death. Many patients had even tried suicide several times but had failed. Jack Kevorkian provided a service that could control their problem and kill them in a relaxed and peaceful way relieving them from a prolonged and painful degeneration and death(Frontline Website). I interviewed my mother on her views on Physician assisted suicide to see this issue from the perspective of someone who was terminally ill but is now currently in remission from ovarian cancer. My mother is a practicing Catholic and she explained her major objections to Euthanasia and doctor assisted suicide. She believes that this is her way in which she gets to suffer as Jesus did and that when people go through these kinds of experiences, God works through them and can influence not only the patients but those who live with the patients. She believes that God has a plan for everyone and that we should not try to control everything in our own lives. She used my father�s brother as an example. My Uncle Dan takes care of my Grandma on my father�s side. My Grandma is 96, on hospice, and can barely recognize who is in the room. She relies totally on Uncle Dan for support. She believes had not Uncle Dan cared for his mother, fed her, clothed her, talked to her, and took care of the house she would have died long ago in a nursing home. I think this proves her point exactly because the fact that I still have a grandma and my little brothers get to grow up with a grandma is important. My uncle is a model to us of respect for life an important trait to learn in today�s society. My mother believes that God�s plan brings greater glory to him through everyone(C. Favier, personal communication).
Jack Kevorkian has opened new doors in the medical community that must be both addressed and answered by the American people. Jack Kevorkian confronted the courts with an ethical dilemma in which the courts laid down their decision allowing the states to determine policy on euthanasia and doctor assisted suicide. Jack Kevorkian was influential in the medical community because of his prodding, like the gadfly, Americans were forced to come to a decision on Euthanasia.
Bibliography
Favier, Cheri. Personal interview. May 10 2005.
"Frontline." The Kevorkian Verdict. Entropy media. 3 May. 2005 .
Gonyea, Don."Kevorkian's Prison Sentence." Morning Edition. National Public Radio, . 14 April 1999. Audio Archive. 11 May 2005 .
Hyde, Henry J. "Catholics in Political Life." America 188.5 (2003): p6.
Paris, John. "Autonomy and Physician-Assisted Suicide." America 176.17 (1997): p11.