Dr. Jack Kevorkian: Hero or Villain?

During the
1990’s and still today the debate over physician assisted suicide has raged on
like a tornado through a trailer park. Pro lifers feel it is wrong and sick, where
many liberals feel it is a personal decision that one must make in the darkest
of their days. The anti assisted suicide crowd argues that if we allow it to
occur more solo suicides will occur. People do not look over the word suicide
and see that it is actually helping the patient move on and prevent suffering.
In fact assisted suicide is a pleasant, humane way for people to die, rather
than suffering a long, slow painful death. Hopefully in the upcoming years
people will let Dr. Kevorkian out of prison and realize what he actually is, a
humane human being who helped people end their suffering and allowed them to
die in peace.          

If you are in a battle with a disease that will
surely kill you, but first turn you into a vegetable, it is absolutely
acceptable for you to decide to end your own life. Assisted suicide does not
mean that doctors will just kill anyone who walks into their office. The
patients go into the office, have to have medical documents proving their terminal
illness, sign documents saying they want to die, and then have to wait to make
sure that it is what they want to do. It is not like Sally shows up one day feeling
a little blue and they stick a needle in her. It is important to realize that
some people have diseases that are incurable, such as AIDS, Parkinson’s, ALS,
and Alzheimer’s, and if these people do not want to make themselves and their
families suffer, it should be ok for them to humanely end their own life in
peace.

There is
such a thing as a life no longer worth living, especially with some of the
horrific diseases we have today. If you are an 80 year old man who has severe Alzheimer’s
that prevents you from recognizing your own children, having no control of your
bodily functions, and remained confined to an old folks home, where you do what
the nurses want you to do. That is a life not worth living, you have no
recollection of who or what you are, making you not actually living, but
occupying space. If you are a vegetable sitting in a chair for 15 hours a day
it is unfair to have your assets taken away in medical care and your family
watching you suffer for years. These are lives not worth living and it would be
better for the patients and for the families if they could die in peace and no
longer suffer.

The United States
government should adopt a national policy allowing physician assisted suicide
because it is a humane way for people to die and allows families to benefit
from the assets of the person who dies, because if they go into a hospital or
nursing home they will have all their assets and life savings taken away.
Allowing assisted suicide would only benefit families, unlike the way the
opposition wants you to think. They want you to believe that it tears families
apart and ruins them, but in fact it makes families stronger and keeps them
from watching a love one die a miserable death, causing great pain and stress
to the families. The Eight Amendment says that there shall be no cruel or
unusual punishments on US citizens, and not allowing them to die in peace and
forcing them to suffer is a cruel and unusual punishment. The government needs
to realize that it is a good thing to allow assisted suicide because it will
benefit the patient and the patient’s family.

If you only
listened to the mainstream media, you would feel that Dr. Jack Kevorkian is the
most evil individual in the United
States, but if you actually look at what he
did, he is an incredible humanitarian whose only intention was to give people a
peaceful death. The media has labeled him such things as “Dr. Death”, which is
unfair, because he did not murder people in cold blood, people sought him out.  He held extensive interviews with the patients
who wanted out of their pain and suffering and offered a humane alternative to
that pain. He also made them sign numerous papers saying they wanted to die,
and even offered them time to wait and think about what they wanted to do. It
was not a “wham bam thank you m’am” style death, where you show up one day and
are dead before you leave. He did not shoot people, hang people, bury them
alive, he simply used a series of drugs that first made you unconscious, then
stopped your breathing then stopped your heart. There was no pain, you just
went to sleep and did not wake up, and were out of your suffering. People
should praise Dr. Kevorkian and get him out of jail, and realize he was only
trying to help humanity, not hurt it like people want you to believe.

The person
who is suffering from the disease should make the decision, unless they are in
a state where they cannot make sound decisions for themselves, where the family
should take over. It is their life, not a doctor’s, not a politician’s, not a
member of the clergy’s, so they should make the decision to take their own life
or not. They are just wanting a way to end their suffering and the suffering of
their families. If  a person is in such a
vegetative state, like Terri Schiavo or an advanced Alzheimer’s patient, that
they cannot make their own decisions it should remain a decision for the family
to make, because they are the ones who are truly suffering. Watching a loved
one go from human to vegetable is one of the most horrific things you ever
would see, so they should decide if it is their “time to go” or not. 

Assisted
suicide, as sad as it may be, is something that we need in the United States.
It is a relief for families, friends and most importantly the sick person who
is suffering on their deathbed. When my grandfather was sick with Alzheimer’s I
wished day in and day out that he would die, not because I didn’t love  him, but because I did love him and did not
want to see him suffer any longer. The day we finally got the call he died my
initial feeling was sadness, but as I thought about the situation I was glad
for him, knowing he in peace, out of his pain and suffering. Knowing him for as
long as I did I know that he did not want to be a vegetable in a nursing home,
which is why I think, although it was sad, it was good for him to die. I wish
my family chose assisted suicide for him a year ago, so he did not become a
skin and bones vegetable who did not know who anyone was. We need assisted
suicide on a national level because it is the right thing to do, and people
need to be taken out of their misery and their families do not need to watch
them slowly deteriorate into death.