The Cause of the Right to Choose to Die.
Jack Kevorkian comes quickly to mind when the subject of euthanasia is mentioned. His supporters would tell you that his motives are irreproachable, to relieve any unnecessary suffering among the terminally ill by assisting in their suicides. Kevorkian, a retired pathologist, sideman to the suicides of more than one hundred and thirty people by his own estimate once stated,"I am a physician and therefore I will act like a physician whenever I can." His continued crusade has earned him the attention of law enforcement officials in Pontiac, Michigan. Through the past few years, he has successfully defended himself on charges of manslaughter and murder. However, in late 1999, a jury found him guilty of the death of one of his "patients". .
Dr. Kevorkian pushed the legal point last September by videotaping himself administering a lethal injection of potassium chloride to Thomas Youk, a fifty two year old suffering form amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The troubling video was broadcast during a segment on "60 Minutes" in November, 1998. Kevorkian used the media in his favor so as to challenge prosecutors to charge him with murder, a rap he had beaten four times before. Three days later, they complied. .
The legal case against Kevorkian was of course, watertight, because his video clearly demonstrated the process of injection. There was no question but that he was guilty in the eyes of the law. The law does not accept that a person can asked to be killed, as Tom Youk clearly did. It is still "murder" legally. So in an attempt to persuade the jury that his action had not been "murder", but a justifiable act of mercy, Kevorkian defended himself. .
On three previous occasions when charged with "assisted suicide", the juries refused to convict Kevorkian against the weight of evidence. But that did not happen this time. "On April 13, 1999, Dr.