Considering this is a man who is in prison precisely because he went beyond merely taunting authorities to actually videotaping an assisted suicide and then having it air on "60 Minutes," it’s not surprising that Jack Kevorkian remains as defiant as ever.
As explained yesterday, Kevorkian recently gave an interview to the Daily Oakland Press on the eve of the fifth anniversary of his conviction for second-degree murder and illegal delivery of a controlled substance. Whereas in many previous assisted suicides Kevorkian had been coy about his involvement, this time he videotaped himself actually injecting Thomas Youk, who had Lou Gehrig's disease, with lethal drugs in 1998. Kevorkian was sentenced to 10-25 years in prison.
The headline, naturally, was that he expected to die behind bars. "There's no doubt I expect to die in prison," said Kevorkian. "All the big powers, they've silenced me. ... So much for free speech and choice on this fundamental human right."
The American people came off no better than the “big powers.”
”The American people are sheep,” a defiant Kevorkian said, according to the Associated Press. “They're comfortable, rich, working. It's like the Romans, they're happy with bread and their spectator sports. The Super Bowl means more to them than any right."
But phone-in vitriol wasn’t all that Kevorkian had to offer. Last month he also penned a two-page “Open Letter to Michigan Legislators” in which he resurrected one of his favorite ideas.
According to Stephen Huber, writing in the Daily Oakland Press, "Suicide proponent Jack Kevorkian wants state legislators who advocate lifting Michigan's 158-year ban on capital punishment to permit the condemned to undergo medical experimentation before death. “
After explaining his opposition to the death penalty, Kevorkian (according to the newspaper) ”wrote that he felt compelled to ‘insist that certain reasonable, logical, moral and compassionate modifications’ be included in any statute that would give the penalty more benefit than simply revenge. He proposes, as he first did in 1958, that the condemned undergo lethal injection and--if they choose--permit their bodies to undergo medical experimentation.”
Kevorkian, over the years, has offered a whole slew of ghoulish proposals. But that, and his assisted suicide killing rampage, doesn’t prevent the likes of the Daily Oakland Press from finding redeeming qualities in “Dr. Death.”
In an editorial that appeared a week ago Monday, the paper first gently chided the 75-year-old pathologist. “While Kevorkian certainly put a spotlight on a serious issue, his outspoken and uncompromising approach actually may have gotten in the way of more progress in legalizing assisted suicide, including in Michigan.”
However, in the convoluted logic that is the trademark of Kevorkian supporters, the paper then did an abrupt turnabout. ”At the same time, the publicity he generated for the problem also certainly made assisted suicide less necessary, to some degree.” Excuse me? “In Oregon, only about 30 people a year have taken advantage of it,” according to the editorial.
Three quick points.
#1. To those behind the Oregon measure to legalize assisted suicide, Kevorkian’s out-of-control personal crusade was their worst nightmare.
#2. As anyone who had no stake in the debate could see, Kevorkian’s behavior was anything but “empowering” to the people he helped kill themselves. Early on some of the more perceptive observers came to the conclusion that Kevorkian played on the fears of women who worried that they might become a “burden” on others.
Writing in the New Republic, for example, Stephanie Gutmann observed,....”[I]n a chart like the one compiled by Kalman Kaplan, director of the Suicide Research Center at Columbia-Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, we see that most of the Kevorkian women were not diagnosed terminal and had not been complaining of severe or constant pain. We see conditions like breast cancer (for which there is now great hope), emphysema, rheumatoid arthritis and Alzheimer's (a condition that usually burdens relatives more than the people who have it). Reading the case histories it is clear that many of these women's lives were messy and unattractive.
“But in all-too-typical female fashion, the patient often seems to have been most worried about the disease's impact on others. Is it possible that a certain type of woman--depressive, self-effacing, near the end of a life largely spent serving others--is particularly vulnerable to the ‘rational,’ ‘heroic’ solution so forcefully proposed by Dr. Death?”
#3. The number of assisted suicides in Oregon is a mystery, regardless of what “official” figures say. There is no penalty if physician involvement is not reported to the Health Department. The criteria for “who qualifies” is as vague today as it was when the law was first legalized in 1997. And worst yet, if possible, the reason cited by most people whose deaths are assisted is fear of a loss of autonomy. This isn’t, nor was it ever, about people in “intractable pain.”
Kevorkian roamed largely unchecked for nine years, participating (as he eventually admitted) in the suicides of 130 people. He wasn’t–and isn’t– a “hero.”
Considering this is a man who is in prison precisely because he went beyond merely taunting authorities to actually videotaping an assisted suicide and then having it air on "60 Minutes," it’s not surprising that Jack Kevorkian remains as defiant as ever.