The sentencing of euthanasia proponent Jack Kevorkian last week to 10 to 25 years in jail for the “mercy-killing” of a terminally ill patient last September, can inform the euthanasia debate in Australia. For nine years, Dr Kevorkian has defied the legal system of his home state of Michigan by aiding in the deaths of about 130 disabled and terminally ill people. Dr Kevorkian is clearly on the extreme edge of the debate. Last November, he broadcast on national television a videotape of what he called his mercy-killing of Thomas Youk, a 52-year-old Detroit man who had Lou Gehrig’s disease, a fatal muscle disorder. Dr Kevorkian dared prosecutors to charge him. And they did. That resulted in his trial and conviction and last week’s sentencing.
The trouble with Dr Kevorkian’s position is that he strayed from advocating a change in the law to actually breaking that law. Opinion polls vary in Australia, but there is a substantial body of opinion, perhaps a majority, that would also like to see a change in the law so that terminally ill people can avoid pain and bring forward their death so they can die in dignity after saying goodbye to friends and relatives before their condition has deteriorated beyond the possibility of communication. In Australia, the Northern Territory changed the law for that to happen within a framework of a lot of safeguards. That law was later overridden by the federal parliament.
Even without the Northern Territory law, the law and practice in Australia has been such that death is frequently hastened because the line between a dose of drugs to kill pain and a dose the kill the patient is a blurry one.
It is one thing, though, for a doctor to hasten death while intending to kill pain and another to deliberately cause death.
As the law stands in Australia, the approach taken by Dr Kevorkian is a dangerous one which must be condemned even by the most committed proponent of euthanasia. The trouble with Dr Kevorkian’s actions is the complete absence of safeguards. Who is to tell if his “”patients” are not suffering from depression; if their choice is an informed one; or if it is based upon unfounded fears about pain? Who is to tell even if the patient is terminally ill? Some of Dr Kevorkian’s victims have been disabled people not terminally ill.
Dr Kevorkian’s actions challenge the very base of civilised society – the rule of law. As Judge Jessica Cooper said in sentencing him, “”This trial was not about the political or moral correctness of euthanasia. It was about lawlessness. It was about disrespect for a society that exists because of the strength of the legal system. No one, sir, is above the law. No one. You had the audacity to go on national television, show the world what you did and dare the legal system to stop you.”
And that is what the legal system did. “”Consider yourself stopped,” the judge said.
The stopping of Dr Kevorkian will please not only the right-to-life movement, but also the right-to-die movement. The latter quite rightly thinks that Dr Kevorkian has damaged their case by his zealotry and extremism.
Dr Kevorkian was sentenced to jail despite relatives of the dead man praising Dr Kevorkian and telling the court that the dead man was not a victim. That shows the importance of society’s role. Matters of life and death are not matters for doctors alone.
It will not be long before an Australian state follows the Northern Territory’s lead and debates a law that permits euthanasia. If passed, the Federal Parliament would have great difficulty overturning it. In the lead up to that, there must be respect for the existing law and safeguards imposed in any new law. The Kevorkian case shows the need for a great deal of care, education and consideration in the matter of euthanasia. Anything else can only result in danger for the terminally ill.