Posted by Benjamin on: 04.17.2008 /
In the news last month, in case you missed it, was the fact that Jack Kevorkian, retired pathologist and assisted suicide advocate, out of prison on parole, is planning to run for U.S. Congress from the state of Michigan.
Kevorkian claims to have helped 130 people die.
In the fundamental independent Baptist Church I grew up in, one of the (many) things we knew for sure was that “assisted suicide” was wrong, in every case, all the time, period.
Now, things aren’t so clear to me as they were back then. I can easily imagine situations in which I would want a little help terminating my own too-slow downward spiral toward death. It also strikes me as strange that (presumably) many of the people who are adamantly against assisted suicide are also strongly in favor of executing certain people.
I wonder if people will vote for him?
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Comment by: Janice
1 04/18/08 1:37 PM | Comment Link |Benjamin - interesting post in light of what I just posted about today!
I have a little doggy that is suffering with terrible pain. At the same time, my mom came down with debilitating hip pain.
The two of them are quite the pair. My mother has stated she has a new empathy for Pedro (the dog) and she has muttered several times that no one should live in this kind of pain (that she has had).
It all brought up some really interesting questions in my mind - about how we decide its ‘humane’ (human-e) to euthanize a dog, but its not humane to end suffereing of a person. hmmm.
I have never been ‘for’ assisted suicide, but the climate in my home has certainly raised some questions for me. If my mother was unable to relieve her pain and couldn’t tolerate it…would I want her - or require her - to live like that?
Its hard because pain can go away…new treatments may come up…our pain tolerance can shift. . its just curious to me how we look at things and what we advocate for.
As I think you eluded to there are those who are against assisted suicide and yet for death row executions.
I dunno. I’m definitely mulling it all over.
~Janice
Comment by: benjamin ady
2 04/18/08 3:34 PM | Comment Link |You bring a really fascinating perspective to the question. I’m totally with you on
In fact I really resonated with Dr. Paul Farmer when he was bemoaning the thought of what he could do to provide health care to the extremely poor in rural Haiti and Rwanda with the dollars that the West spends on Doggie shampoos every year.
It’s fascinating how similar parts of our stories are right now. My own beautiful mother has terminal cancer and has reached the end of all available treatment and is in hospice care. Meanwhile, just a couple weeks ago, our family dog, April, a beautiful blue merle Aussie Shepherd, who had been moving more and more slowly and refusing to eat, was diagnosed with a basketball sized tumor in her abdomen, and my family decided to go ahead and … well, not being one to like euphemisms…to kill her.
My thoughts on suicide in general were really challenged by a scene in Helen Dewitt’s brilliant novel The Last Samurai (which, by the way, is in no way related to the movie of the same name.)
Comment by: Rachel
3 04/18/08 7:02 PM | Comment Link |Benjamin, I am so sad to hear about your mother and about April. ((big hug))
Comment by: Benjamin
4 04/18/08 7:34 PM | Comment Link |Janice,
Oh–I wanted to say I’m sorry about your mom’s terrible hip pain. I hope that the physicians that be are able to provide at least some level of reduction of pain for her!
Rachel. Thank you. Megan is finding the thing with my mom much harder than I am finding it right now. that’s because as a male, I’m a bit brain damaged, and as a female, she’s not, so she is able to emotionally realize things faster/better than I am. Plus she’s just awesome in general =)
Comment by: Eliza
5 04/20/08 7:35 PM | Comment Link |Benjamin, I’m so sorry to hear about your mother, as well as your family’s dog. (And, I am glad you have such an awesome partner as Megan with you on this journey.)
Janice, I’m also sorry about your mother and your dog (though we haven’t met, or even “e-met” before, to my knowledge). I guess one difference I see is that your mother’s painful hip condition is something that could potentially be better managed to reduce to pain, or even fix the problem, depending on what the problem is.
My beef with Kevorkian is that he never treated living patients to diagnose & treat their conditions, or even to ease their suffering so they could live more peaceful lives. He just killed them. I know the claim is that he “helped” them kill themselves, but when it’s his machine that he hooks them up to, and his canister of deadly gas or whatever attached to it, and he shows them what knob to turn, and the only “successful” outcome is that the person dies (rather than the person is groggy but in much less pain, as with morphine etc), then I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em: he killed these people. 100% mortality rate among his patients, both the ones he “saw” as a pathologist and the ones he “treated” in the public eye. Bah.
Comment by: Janice
6 04/22/08 8:14 AM | Comment Link |Thanks all. :)
Benjamin - Sorry to hear about your Mum. I agree that the money people spend on some things could be better spent…relieving suffering of humanity. I see what I consider to be ‘useless’ spending or extavagant spending all the time and it annoys me, yet I know I have my fair share of it as well. Something I’ve been looking at a lot lately.
I’ll be keeping you and yours in my thoughts and prayers.
~Janice
Comment by: Benjamin
7 04/22/08 11:22 AM | Comment Link |Eliza, Janice,
thank you for your kind words.
I didn’t know that about Kevorkian–100% mortality among his patients does sound a bit shocking, at first. But … Aren’t there doctors who soley work with late stage terminal patients, and thus have that stat? I mean ultimately, I suppose all doctors have a 100% mortality rate among their patients, don’t they, even Luke the beloved physician =).
Now there’s a pleasant thought.
Comment by: Janice
8 04/22/08 11:33 AM | Comment Link |Speaking as someone in health care - all doctors have 100% death rate (oops, just saw you wrote that too Benjamin).
I guess the big difference is in attempting to prolong life (and at what quality) or attempting to end it by direct action. One of my main hold outs is that there are newer treatments etc always on the horizon. Many patients chose to end life due to pain and pain management is actually at the forefront of much discussion in the medical field currently.
Technology in many ways has created a distinct set of new problems for us to consider.