The possibility of a long, painful life and soul-destroying illness is unbelievable to most people. That it may happen to a parent or sibling is even more unbelievable. Imagine what it would be like.
-
You snap your newspaper open. Following the front-page story, you cluck your tongue and wonder what those people out in Detroit are thinking, charging Jack Kevorkian with murder in the suicide of Janet Adkins. She was dying of Alzheimer's disease. Why should Kevorkian be prosecuted for what was clearly the right thing to do? The person he helped was going to die anyway; he just made it more dignified and humane. That's all. He shouldn't be punished for helping another human being find some solace and comfort at the end of their life.
-
Donald O'Keefe, cancer patient, and Thomas Hyde, ALS patient, are assisted in suicide by Kevorkian. He is charged in Hyde's death the same year, but is acquitted.
-
Your newspaper tells you that Michigan has banned assisted suicide. You've watched the story closely. Kevorkian has assisted in 18 suicides and is on trial for murder. But, one state makes it legal for a doctor to help someone die. You think, finally, progressive voters in far away Oregon have shown the courage to legislate what you know to be morally right. Just as human beings can decide their course through life, so should they be able to decide their course out of life, especially if that life has become an unbearable existence leading to a slow and grinding death from incurable disease.
-
Kevorkian is acquitted of Hyde's death, and Michigan's law is declared unconstitutional. You cheer silently and slap your newspaper on the coffee table. Kevorkian continues to help people die; you visit your 59-year-old father who has not been feeling well.
-
Erika Garcellano, a woman with ALS, dies at Kevorkian's "suicide clinic" in Springfield Township, Michigan. Kevorkian is charged with murder in the 1991 suicides of Sherrie Miller and Majorie Wantz.
-
Your father questions you about Kevorkian. He knows you support the idea of assisted suicide. You tell your father that he is doing fine, he'll get better, and many people survive his form of cancer. You slam the paper down and walk away. Kevorkian is acquitted of murder charges in Michigan.
Kevorkian's lawyer announces "a previously unreported assisted suicide of a 54-year-old woman," the forty-sixth person since 1990. The woman is unnamed. Your father has colon cancer, but the chemo treatments and the radiation have slowed its course; he is looking better; his hair has grown back and he has gained weight.
-
The US Supreme Court decides that states can determine the legality of assisted suicide and may outlaw the practice if they choose. The summer passes slowly. Your dad talks more about Kevorkian and suicide. You ignore him and consult other doctors. You make plans to go to Mexico for peroxide treatments, to Europe for complete blood transfusions.
-
Kevorkian assists with his 100th suicide, a "66-year-old Detroit man." Eight months later CBS televises the suicide of 52-year-old Thomas Youk, a victim of Lou Gehrig's disease. You are horrified. Your father is unable to care for himself. You relearn family history at his bedside; he tells you stories you didn't know. You are closer now then you have ever been. He tells you he wants to die. He is lucid and competent. He wants to die.
You have changed your mind. Death, with its hard and ugly certainty, is present in your house. The newspaper only blackened your fingers with ink. What your father is asking you to do will blacken your soul. Reality has forced you away from the news, propelled you into your father's life. Those others should have been stopped. No one has the right to decide when to die; death must take its natural course. You'll make the decision now. It is against the law to commit suicide. It is not your father's decision. It is the state that will decide. The state and you.
Spring 1999. Kevorkian is convicted of Youk's death and sentenced to 10-25 years in prison. Your father has been dead for six months. He died in the hospital, hooked to a ventilator, breathing through a tube in his throat, eating through a tube in his stomach, drinking through intravenous lines in his neck and arms. He was comatose. He weighed 90 pounds. It was your decision. Yours and the state's.
