When Right-to-Die Issue Is Done Wrong

Dr. Jack Kevorkian accomplished exactly what he set out to do. He pushed discussion of whether the terminally ill have the right to choose to die to the forefront of the debate. But in the process, Kevorkian managed to make trivial an issue that will only grow in importance to the American public.

He connected a 54-year-old woman believed to be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease to what he described as a “Rube Goldberg” suicide device and helped her use it to give herself a lethal injection. Although a judge ordered the pathologist not to repeat his actions, Kevorkian has said he will employ his invention next time a “suitable case” is presented.

Janet Adkins contacted the doctor because she heard him touting the device in the media. Over dinner the night the two met, the pathologist decided she was competent to make the decision to end her life. The final scene was played out two days later in a van at a Michigan state park.

One year ago the Oregon woman experienced some memory loss and, by process of elimination, physicians arrived at a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. The incurable, fatal disease slowly wastes both mind and body, although 10-15 years often elapse before a patient is fully debilitated.

As medical science has advanced, it more often has brought us not cures for deadly diseases but ways of managing illness and prolonging life. Sickness that used to kill quickly now kills with sometimes agonizingly slow motion. Thus, more Americans are groping for answers to the serious question of what constitutes living versus mere existence.

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to stop the tube feedings of a 32-year-old Missouri woman who has been unconscious for most of her adult life. Nancy Cruzan has for six years been confined to a bed, seemingly oblivious to her surroundings, surviving on a machine.

A new Times Mirror Poll found that most Americans would not want their lives prolonged by extraordinary means, and that eight in 10 support the right of individuals to decide to die. If a patient cannot communicate, a majority feels the immediate family should make the decision. More than half feel the terminally ill have a right to commit suicide.

Clearly, public dialogue on these issues needs to continue. As medicine becomes more sophisticated and the median age of Americans grows older, these questions will crop up more and more frequently--because this issue will directly affect increasing numbers of the nation’s parents, spouses and children.

But Dr. Kevorkian’s twisted experiment hasn’t advanced the dialogue. If anything, the clandestine administration of a lethal injection in the back end of a rusty van mocks the very phrase: death with dignity.