#Kevorkian - my semi-personal connections

With the news that Jack Kevorkian, the "Dr. Death" assisted suicide proponent, is dead at 83, I offer a moment of reflection on two semi-personal connections to him.

First, in the middle 1990s, I had a year of adjunct college teaching work in Flint, Mich. The place was Baker College, which had a division called "corporate services" devoted to adult college education, primarily to UAW workers using union benefits to try to get a degree before the next round of Big Three layoffs.

Well, partly due to my divinity degree, one class I was teaching was a class on issues in death and dying - religious, philosophical, medical, legal and psychological/sociological.

And, it just so happened that Kevorkian's first trial for assisted suicide was during this time, which made for an easy class assignment.

Students were told they were a "jury," and they had to clip at least one newspaper article (hey, it was 1993!) and paste it into a diary, along with at least one journal entry per week. At either the last week of class, or the week his trial wrapped up, they'd vote, like the real jury, on his fate.

From relatively conservative Catholics on to farther "left" on the religion scale, he was unanimously acquitted.

As I was in the process of moving beyond the religious beliefs with which I had been raised, the course was interesting and challenging for me, too.

Second connection?

At around the same time, I had an interview for a job in Los Angeles.

On my plane flight west? Kevorkian's mouthpiece, Geoffrey Fieger, who had not yet hit the level of total outrageousness that he did later on, as his Wiki page documents.

Despite his ever-growing ego level since the start of the Kevorkian saga, I don't doubt Fieger will indeed shed tears.



That said, I left him be in peace on the flight; the class was done, and there was no other reason to disturb his space.

Many people still ask "why" as to Kevorkian doing it. I think part of it was genuine concern. Part of it was, though, psychological issues on his part, some of them related to his Armenian background and his feeling, already then, that the Ottoman Empire's genocide of Armenians hadn't gotten due recognition.

As for those larger issues, though? William Saletan gets it about right. Kevorkian did bring this out from the shadows, but, he was lax at truly looking at his patients' needs and the best way to help them, and he overall wasn't the best "role model" for the movement of assisted suicide rights.

But, he was raising the right questions and issues:

Assisted suicide, it turns out, is a lot like abortion. No government can stop it—I would have risked jail to get the pills if necessary—and efforts to enforce its prohibition only make it less careful and humane. But, like the right to abortion, it can be abused. People want to die for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes it's agony. Sometimes it's boredom. Sometimes it's fear. Maybe your mother needs a lethal prescription. Maybe she needs antidepressants. Maybe you just need to hold her hand.

Kevorkian didn't have the answers. But he raised the right questions. We can't criticize his flaws, temper his ideas, and praise the hospice movement without acknowledging what he did. He forced an open conversation about the right to take your own life. Under what conditions, and within what limits, should that right be exercised? Even if it's legal, is it moral? What do you do when a loved one wants to die? Kevorkian didn't take those questions with him. He has left them to us.

Eighteen years ago, the "good Catholics" and others in my death and dying class largely agreed.

(Sidebar; whenever I look at the Washington Post op-ed page, or glance at Faux News, I actually think Charles Krauthammer is "Dr. Death."

Kevorkian really wants you to pull the lever

That is, if you want to vote for “Dr. Death” to be your next Congressman in suburban Detroit.

Hell, I bet he has no problem meeting the requirement of getting 3,000 signatures by July 17. That would get him on the November ballot as an independent. Per the local suburban paper, the Oakland Press:

He lives in the 9th Congressional District. The seat is held by eight-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Hills. Democrats currently filed to run include former Michigan Lottery Commissioner Gary Peters.

Kevorkian is still on parole, until June 1, 2009, for his second-degree murder conviction April 13, 1999 for his participation in the assisted suicide of Thomas Youk. Michigan law does not bar him from running for office.

Here’s the take on Jack’s run from the prosecutor in that case:

“I would place Jack Kevorkian’s candidacy in the same ranking with (Texas U.S. Rep.) Ron Paul’s (presidential run),” Dave Gorcyca said.

“It’s probably more of a publicity stunt. To call attention to himself is standard protocol for Jack when he doesn’t have the limelight focused on him. I would not consider his candidacy to be a legitimate one.”

First, while Jack can flock to the limelight, I think this limelight NEEDS his presence.

Second, Gorcyca shows himself to be a stuffed-shirt suburban Republican, with the dismissal of Ron Paul as well. (Not that Ron Paul isn’t a huge nutbar, but, that’s not why Gorcyca is dissing him and you know that.)

Third, Knollenberg was re-elected in 2006 with just 51.6 percent of the vote. And, the economy in Michigan has deteriorated further since then, making him vulnerable.

Could Kevorkian bring out a number of libertarian types who might not otherwise vote? Could he poach senior citizens from both parties? You betcha.

Personally, I would not only pull the lever, I would endorse him, if I could and edited a newspaper there, I would personally endorse him on my blog, and…

I am personally endorsing him on my blog.

Go, Jack, go. Even with one lonely voice, someone challenging right-to-die and assisted suicide legal bans might open other Members of Congress to speak against the War on Drugs and related bullshit.

Note: I taught a class in death and dying issues at Baker College in Michigan in the mid-1990s, during Kevorkian’s first trial.

That said, do I consider him the ideal PR person for assisted suicide? No. At one time, he may have been, but, he crossed the line in the Youk case by administering the injection himself. Even if Youk were that seriously incapacitated, surely an cyberwhiz friend or acquaintance of Kevorkian could have rigged up a way for Youk to self-inject by batting his eyelids a certain number of times.

Jack Kevorkian out of jail - now what?

Many people in the right-to-die movement are viewing this as though he has the plague.

Read here for more:

To advocates, he is like the embarrassing dinner guest who ruined your last party with spilt wine and a drunken rant -- Kevorkian's name is rarely, if ever, mentioned.

“He’s the equivalent of a back-alley abortionist,” said Steve Hopcraft, a Sacramento lobbyist working to pass California’s assisted-suicide proposal, echoing a common sentiment.

Added Lloyd Levine, a sponsor of the California proposal: “Kevorkian is exactly why we need to pass this law.

“He operated with flagrant disregard for the law and took the law into his own hands. We cannot distance ourselves from Dr. Jack Kevorkian enough.”

Kevorkian defenders insist the movement should be grateful for him.

Neal Nicol, a Kevorkian associate present at nearly 100 assisted suicides, said today's activists should be thanking Kevorkian, not burying him.

“Had Jack not been here and did what he did, they wouldn't even be talking about assisted suicide in California,” said Nicol of Springfield Township.

I taught a class on death and dying in Michigan in the mid-90s. I agree that Kevorkian has stimulated debate about right-to-die issues, and has even pushed this issue far forward.

At the same time, though, while not calling him a "back-alley abortionist," he does carry some psychological baggage. Part of it seems to include his Warholian lust for his 15 minutes of fame, plus what almost seems like “survivor guilt” over the Armenian holocaust. Add to that what also seemed like, despite his dealing personally with patients, an almost clinical/technical focus on the mechanism of the assisted suicide, and he is not the best spokesman for the movement today.

Add to that his lawyer, Geoffrey Fieger, who could almost be a poster boy for tort reform legislation, and I can't blame right-to-die people for wanting to keep their distance from Jack.