Kevorkian paroled
After serving eight years of a 10-to-20-year sentence for second-degree murder, Jack Kevorkian is expected to be free on June 1, 2007. Although he is requesting an expedited release because of allegedly poor health, it appears that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm will not grant that wish. A further reminder of his past:
Kevorkian was convicted in 1999 of second-degree murder in the Sept. 17, 1998, death of Thomas Youk, 52, of Waterford, a victim of the debilitating Lou Gehrig's disease.
The death was different from others in two ways. First, it was videotaped and aired on the CBS show "60 Minutes." Second, Youk was unable to press the button to deliver a fatal dose of drugs, and the tape showed Kevorkian doing it for him, which provided prosecutors with evidence that Kevorkian had stepped past the assisted-suicide line.
Youk was one of more than 130 people Kevorkian assisted in dying. A number of the people Kevorkian "helped" were determined to not be terminally ill even though that is the condition much of the public considers part of their moral reasoning for support of physician-assisted suicide.
Disability activists were disappointed but not surprised by the announcement on December 13th 2006 that Jack Kevorkian will be paroled on June 1, 2007. Reflecting on years of experience with the euthanasia debate and with Kevorkian himself, the following predictions were made by members of Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group that organizes opposition to legalized euthanasia, assisted suicide and other types of medical killings:From the NDY archives, some information on the now-defunct pro-euthanasia group Hemlock Society.
1. We expect that Kevorkian will show near-miraculous “recovery” from his alleged grave medical problems. He has announced that he plans to speak and write. We expect him to suddenly show enough health and energy to make numerous media appearances and speaking engagements. We could be wrong, but we were suspicious his health problems were greatly exaggerated when his lawyer filed appeals for four years in a row claiming Kevorkian was essentially on the brink of death.
2. Pro-euthanasia advocates will be scrambling to figure out how to maintain control of the debate over euthanasia and assisted suicide. Over the past few years, groups such as the Hemlock Society have reformed and sanitized their images – even changing their name. They’ve worked hard to maintain the fiction that the goals of the euthanasia movement in the U.S. are limited to legalization of assisted suicide for people who are close to death from a terminal illness, despite the fact that Hemlock provided $40,000 for Kevorkian’s legal defense. With Kevorkian once again gaining prominence in the debate, the public will be reminded of his role as a hero to the
pro-euthanasia movement, in spite of the well documented fact that the majority of his body count consisted of people with disabilities who were not terminally ill. It’s also doubtful that Kevorkian will cooperate with the sanitized euphemisms for assisted suicide being promoted by the pro-assisted suicide activists, which will help undermine some of the very expensive public relations work they’ve engaged in over the past few years.
3. Some things are harder to predict than others. Will Kevorkian preside over any more suicides or actively kill anyone? There’s no way to know, since the only rules Kevorkian cares about are his own. The fact that he’s made a promise doesn’t mean anything – he’s made promises to courts before and broken them.
4. Mike Wallace or Barbara Walters can be expected to do a very sympathetic and biased interview with Kevorkian. They’ll downplay his history of helping non-terminally ill disabled people commit suicide and portray him as some kind of martyr. They won’t mention his advocacy of lethal experimentation on death row prisoners or disabled infants at all.
Whatever happens, Not Dead Yet and the disability community will be paying attention and responding to developments. We witnessed the long awaited justice that put him in jail. We won’t forget the struggling disabled people he preyed upon. And we won’t be silent.
Other links:
Why assisted suicide is a feminist issue by Barbara Waxman Fiduccia
A 2001 Ragged Edge article by NDY's Stephen Drake about Kervorkian
Recent Detroit Free Press article on the pro-euthanasia movement's response to Kevorkian's parole
5 comments:
Not to be uncivilized or bad tempered or anything...but if I was a wagering person I'd wager he won't wait long to start stirring up trouble.
He'll cozy right up to the "Futile Care" law in Texas or something,
[Ugh] just [Ugh)
He provides a choice, you don't have to use it. That's why this country is so great! Go Doc!
Live and let live--(or let die-)choices, glad we have them. Ever think some people have finished their mission, or that this is part of it? Don't be so -closed - to other way's than what YOU deem to be right. It is a right to choose.
Those of us that are against Kevorkian are protesting not to prevent choice, but so everyone truly has one. (We also realize that Kevorkian's admitted goal is to use disabled babies/kids/adults in 'creative' experiments, then use untested drugs to kill. Depicting death as a mercy to us is a step in that direction. Are *you* aware you're supporting someone wishing to treat people as Hitler did?)
It is not a real "choice" when one is left ignorant about the option to live a dignified pain-free life. Nor is it a "choice" if deprived of the ability to pursue them due to income or lack of support. We also aren't being given a "choice" if somebody else decides that because we have atypical bodies or brains, being suicidal must mean we're finished with a "mission" rather than having it imply depression as it does in everybody else. If they feel it's the case for everyone, then go advocate for the right of everyone, including average angsty pre-teens, to be euthanized on request.
I learned this firsthand last year. I was in increasing pain, lifelong disabilities, no meds helped, unable to do much... I became self-harming and suicidal even with antidepressants: thought I was a burden on society and family, that my life would never improve, that the only relief would be in death.
I was the kind of stereotypical case used for pro-suicide stuff. I was even offered forms by my HMO so I could reject even basic health treatment if I was hospitalized.
So if Kevorkian were around, I would have had the "choice" to die and escape all that misery, right? Sure, except you overlook then that the physical/emotional torment wasn't necessary.
Until several changes of doctor gave me one into serious pain management, I had no idea that there was a patch medication that could help. It just happened to be very hard to get, not covered by Medicaid, hard to refill, and nobody else was aware of it.
The first patch of medication cut my pain in half, and my depression vanished with it... But it was pure *luck* that gave me that ending. What if I didn't have a way to a no-exam-needed HMO backdoor? What if I didn't have a loving friend to urge me, over and over, to push the doctor? What if I lacked the right antidepressant that gave me the tiny energy/aggression burst to do so?
If I didn't have all of those things, then how could I *truly* have had the "choice" between life and death? I would have only been able to choose between agony and death, totally unaware that it was even possible for "life" to be a tolerable option, let alone that I might be able to be happy again.
The cases I have seen used by advocates of assisted suicide usually are the same kind of story. In most, the person is lacking at least one (if not all) of the things that I had through good luck. They can "choose" between three doors -- good life, painful life, and death -- but the "good" door is either hidden behind a curtain, or locked behind an iron gate.
I can understand that people wish to have the choice of when to die, but the decision shouldn't be based on problems we can fix. Those fighting for suicide should analyze the reasons they feel that way, and demand solutions to those problems so they don't interfere in their decision. It *is* possible to lead a happy, dignified, pain-free life with any disability, but we must all push for all of us to have it. Suicide should be for when all else truly has failed, just as in nondisabled folk...not a shortcut people are tricked into taking out of guilt and torment.
Wonderful response to the Anonymouses, Moggy. They have that liberal misunderstanding of where "choice" and disability issues meet in real life. Disability rights activists against Kevorkian are not anti-choice, we're anti-coercion.
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