Physician Assisted Suicide and the Right to Die

In regard to the physician assisted suicide issue, I have moved from interest to concern to anger. I am enraged by the nerve of the Michigan judicial system to pursue so adamantly a man clearly trying to ease the suffering of terminally ill people. I haven’t seen any valid argument against his methods, yet Dr. Kevorkian is now on the brink of a hefty prison sentence. Even larger an issue than Dr. Kevorkian’s personal future, is that of American society in general. We could stand to lose the most natural and inherent right of all: the right to die. Why is it that this right, which is always forced upon us without our say, is suddenly refuted when we try to exercise it ourselves? Why can’t a mentally competent person exercise the free will to end his or her own life?

This is the same right all males exercise when they turn eighteen and fill out the form that says they must be willing to give up their life for their country (government assisted suicide). The same right we exercise when we light up a cigarette (substance addiction assisted suicide), get behind the wheel (highway assisted suicide), or exercise too aggressively (good-intention-gone-bad assisted suicide). No one wants to admit that maybe we don’t really have much control over when we die. When viewed in this perspective, are we not all committing suicide every day in one way or another? If so, is suicide really such an unnatural thing?

In all of these examples we are making decisions to do things that we know put our lives at risk. Is putting your life at risk that much different than ending it? I don’t think so. But I’ve yet to see a political uprising trying to condemn stunt men, NASCAR drivers, or extreme skiers; groups of people who risk life on a regular basis. Maybe it’s the entertainment value that is lacking. People are interested in other people’s deaths when it is exciting. Watching someone hook themselves up to a machine and peacefully die is just too boring. If we could somehow add some excitement to physician assisted suicide we could generate the appeal required to gain the support of the monster-truck-mentality masses and all would be well.

On another comparison, nature is the cause of many deaths. People are killed quite regularly by earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. Who’s to blame? If the metaphoric mother nature existed, would she be arrested for “nature assisted suicide”? And what about the people that insist on “weathering out” a hurricane? Should they be arrested, or better yet, should the police be arrested for not stepping in and forcibly removing these people from a very probable deathly situation. Here’s a little hypothetical situation to ponder. What if someone that was terminally ill got a friend to drop them off at a location where a hurricane was about to hit and they sat down on the beach and waited. When the hurricane hits and kills the person, is that friend responsible? Would the friend be responsible if he or she was a doctor? I realize this is a pretty abstract scenario but scenarios like it must be confronted if we hope to resolve this issue. What I’m getting at is that this isn’t simply about one man and his machine, this is a much larger issue about choosing our destiny and ultimately, our personal freedom.

All of the patients that have been involved in Dr. Kevorkian’s program have been terminally ill. Knowing that death is imminent in these patients, the primary issue regarding their death is timing; the message appears to be that it’s OK to die later, just don’t engage in something that you know will kill you now. One argument I’ve heard is that of letting the patient die naturally, as if Dr. Kevorkian’s methods are less “natural” than current medical practices. Since when did modern medicine, which is composed almost exclusively of man-made technologies, become so natural? I can’t recall ever seeing any life support systems or pace makers growing in the wild. If we stop physician assisted suicide, should we not also stop any attempt of modern medicine to alter the natural course of life and death? If not, if we make the distinction between using modern medicine to sustain life and stop life, then we should disallow someone reliant on a life support system to be disconnected from it. By disconnecting them from the system we are causing them to die. Never mind what has caused them to be on the life support system to start with, just concentrate on the fact that the action of removing the system will be consciously taken and will result in their life ending. (Please note that I use the word “life” loosely here; to me “life” involves a little more than a pulse, but that’s another issue.) The fact that we are ignoring the reason they were put on life support to start with is the very fact that cripples the argument against physician assisted suicide; the illness is what is killing the person, the suicide part is just a means of ending an already terminal process that cannot be stopped.

Another big point regarding Dr. Kevorkian’s machine is that the patient is the one to actually invoke the process. Dr. Kevorkian provides a safe means that is a complete and total option until the patient makes it a decision by physically starting the device. The patient has final say. This actually gives the patient more rights than the life support argument I already mentioned. When someone is disconnected from a life support system they have no say at all unless they have a living will, in which case they still don’t get a chance to think it over at the last minute. With Dr. Kevorkian’s method the patient is in control for the entire process. If we ban his methods we should ban removing people from life support systems, period.

Another glaring flaw in the logic against euthanasia and, in particular, Dr. Kevorkian’s “death machine” is the emphasis put on the tools used to carry out the suicide. Apparently a big problem with Dr. Kevorkian’s machine is that it kills people. Well, many things kill people. People kill people! Everyday household items kill many, many people. For argument’s sake, however, let’s limit the discussion to things that allow people to kill themselves. Well, we are still left with guns, razors, ropes, bridges, prescription drugs, and automobiles, to name a few. So if we are going to ban the “death machine” let’s just ban them all. On a similar note, would there be a problem if Dr. Kevorkian met with his patients, just like he has been doing, at the time they are ready to commit suicide, and rather than using his machine, laid a pistol on the table in front of them? Or what about a steak knife? The person could easily end their life with either of these tools (much messier and more painful, mind you) that are readily available and quite legal. He is a doctor and is providing tools to end life, right? So does that mean doctors can’t provide steak knives to their guests at dinner?

Relying on the previous argument, let’s assume it’s not really the machine causing the uproar. We’re left with the fact that the problem must be that the person assisting the suicide is a doctor. Well, now that’s interesting. Are we saying that the same people we rely on as experts in every other circumstance regarding our physical (and often mental) lives are not the proper authorities for helping ending it? We rely on them to help bring us into this world. I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be allowed to help take us out if we are given the absolute final say. The fact that we have the final say refutes the argument of doctors misusing their position when aiding suicides.

Of all these arguments, my biggest problem with the entire issue is the part everyone talks about the least: the patients. What about the patients? Remember, they are the ones suffering. Ever notice that the people most adamantly against euthanasia are healthy? I have the luxury of good health that allows me to enjoy the present and look forward to the future. I can’t imagine the strain of trying to go on with a terminal disease when every thought goes back to the pain. It’s simple: no one can know the suffering and anguish felt when terminally ill without being there. I know enough that I don’t want to know. And since I can’t know how bad it is, who am I to say whether someone can or can’t end their personal misery. Who am I to say that life, no matter how agonizing and bleak it may get, is always better than death?

Finally, it is interesting to note how we have machines designed for the specific purpose of ending life. We even have political action groups solely devoted to the freedom of availability and usage of these machines. There are significant uprisings whenever the leveraging of these machines comes up in a legal forum. (I’m referring to gun control, which I’m against, incidentally.) We spend billions designing and building machines to kill more efficiently. This makes me wonder why it is that so many people care so much about keeping a means to kill each other, yet no one gives a damn about the only killing I’ve heard of yet that can be remotely justified - the killing of oneself when you’re already dying. Like most issues tainted with self-righteous and religious slants (in our government that separates church and state, mind you), this one probably won’t be settled for years, after many lives have been unnecessarily lost, wasted, or destroyed. Man, you really do have to die in this country to have rights…

-mm