Word: euthanasia
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Thus Kevorkian, as he said later, "invited himself" to his own trial. It was his latest--and with Friday's guilty verdict, perhaps his last--attempt to provoke and expand the public discussion of euthanasia. "I had to raise the issue," Kevorkian told the jury. And he was unapologetic for using TV to get his point across: "This forum can get it to a stage quickly...
...Jack Kevorkian finally got what he wanted on Wednesday. A Michigan district judge ordered the infamous Dr. Death to stand trial on charges of first-degree murder for last month's televised euthanasia of Thomas Youk. Kevorkian, who had dared prosecutors to charge him, will have to defend himself on murder, assisted suicide and controlled substance charges for the lethal injection of Youk, which was broadcast on "60 Minutes...
...Cohen -- that is, the doctor hopes the jury will refuse to convict even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Not that an acquittal would overturn the law -- only the legislature can do that. But if Michigan jurors send a signal to state law enforcement that they don't want euthanasia cases prosecuted, Kevorkian -- and anyone else -- would be free to help terminally ill residents end their lives. Even when the TV cameras aren't watching...
...course, when the baby boomers themselves get up into the Kevorkian years, there may be interesting changes in their thinking. Alongside the euthanasia that some might be willing to visit on their parents (the end-of-life completion of the parricide they rehearsed when shouldering their elders aside in the '60s), they will no doubt devote themselves feverishly to bringing about miracles to extend their lives. Viagra was just the beginning. The boomers' will toward immortality is quite fierce and will eventually produce, though I will not be around to see them, hilarious tragedies...
...cannot believe the law should ever sanction euthanasia--the very word sounds sinister to me, an Orwellian corruption. The trouble is, I also like the libertarian thought that a person damn well has a right to die when he wants to. The solution I propose to Cathy is this: what we already have--a quiet, informal, private routine in which families and physicians agree, without fuss and in an unofficial zone below the purview of the law, to withhold further treatment, to cut off nourishment, to shut down the IV, even to administer a little more morphine (a gray area...