By Liz Townsend
On the eve of a vote by the Michigan House
on a law to permanently ban assisted suicide, morgues are filling up with
more victims of Jack Kevorkian as "Dr. Death" and his helpers
begin "taking all comers," in the words of the Detroit News.
At least nine people have died just since December, including a mentally
ill man, a woman suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, a transsexual with
AIDS, and a 21-year-old man, paralyzed only a year ago from a viral infection,
who did not even have time to explore all his treatment options.
These latest incidents have provoked some legislators who formerly supported
assisted suicide to consider throwing their support behind a ban that has
been moving slowly through the legislative process and is due for a vote
in March, according to Right to Life of Michigan Legislative Director Ed
Rivet. Rivet told NRL News, "He can only walk the tightrope
for so long."
The state Senate already passed an assisted suicide ban in December with
a vote of 28-7. The state House will debate two bills, one to ban the practice
and one to legalize it, on March 12. Rivet said he is confident the House
will follow the Senate's example and outlaw assisted suicide.
A temporary ban on assisted suicide first went into effect in Michigan
in 1993. In December 1994, after a long court battle, the state Supreme
Court ruled in that there was no right to assisted suicide in the Michigan
Constitution. The legislature then began the long process of attempting
to pass a permanent ban.
Kevorkian has responded to such a law by threatening to starve himself
to death if he is ever jailed for his actions. Also participating in this
hunger strike would be his "apprentice," Georges Reding.
"We want the law passed. We need it badly," Kevorkian told the
Detroit News. "I would prefer a conviction. Our conviction and
death will help future, more enlightened societies gauge the darkness of
our plutocratic and theocratic age. Ironically, the state of Michigan would
be assisting in our deaths."
Between making such dire pronouncements, Kevorkian attended Time magazine's
75th anniversary gala in New York March 3, mingling with politicians and
movie stars. His date, an employee of Kevorkian's flamboyant attorney Geoffrey
Fieger, told the Associated Press that "Dr. Death" even
introduced her to actor Kevin Costner.
"I kept telling Dr. Kevorkian that I wanted to meet Kevin Costner...
finally he went over there and told him that 'If you don't come meet my
date, I'm going to kill you,'" Rebecca Eaton said. "So Kevin Costner
came over and said 'hello' to me."
The sweep of Kevorkian's involvement just grows and grows. Kevorkian admitted
at a December news conference he has "assisted" in 80 to 100 "suicides,"
and there have been at least six more since then.
On December 27, Kevorkian and Reding delivered the body of 53-year-old
Franz-Johann Long, who had a history of mental illness, to POH Medical Center
in Pontiac. "I know he was not mentally well," his niece Jane
McDonough told the Detroit Free Press.
Long was supposedly suffering from bladder cancer. However, Oakland County
Medical Examiner Dr. Ljubisa Dragovic told the Free Press that the
autopsy showed "what appears to be a superficially involved urinary
bladder tumor. It was certainly not a condition that was life-threatening,
and could have been easily handled by competent medical treatment."
Serious questions have also been raised about the mental state of another
victim, 35-year-old Carrie Hunter, whose body was found in a Pontiac motel
room January 18. Hunter was born a man and had a sex-change operation, and
was also suffering from AIDS. According to the Detroit News, Fieger
admitted that the assisted suicide "was all Dr. Reding" but that
Kevorkian consulted in the case.
Psychiatrist Richard Balon told the Detroit News that Hunter's status
as a transsexual, which could carry its own psychological complications,
and as an AIDS patient, which can often lead to psychological and physical
depression, makes a truly competent suicide decision unlikely.
"Was there anything else that could have been done other than helping
her with suicide?" Balon said. "Being a transsexual is not an
easy way of life. We do not know what her support system was."
Kevorkian and his associates were especially active the night of March
5, when they dropped the body of a 42-year-old man at a hospital in Commerce
Township at 7:50 p.m. and then brought the body of a 61-year-old woman to
another hospital in Oakland County at 11 p.m., according to press accounts.
They left a note with the man's body stating he had fibromyalgia, a nonfatal
muscle disorder, and a note with the woman's body indicating she suffered
from rheumatoid arthritis, which is also not terminal. They both died from
lethal injections.
Roosevelt Dawson also died from a lethal injection. Dawson, 21, became
paralyzed in January 1997 as a result of a viral infection. After he asserted
he wanted to leave Metropolitan Hospital in Grand Rapids to be killed with
Kevorkian's help, the Free Press reported, hospital officials attempted
to have him declared incompetent to save his life. However, on February
26, 1998, a court ruled that he was competent and could leave the hospital
if he wished.
According to the Free Press, within hours of leaving the hospital
February 26 Dawson met Kevorkian and his assistants at his mother's apartment.
Police officers also arrived at the scene and attempted to stop Dawson's
death. Those inside refused to allow police to enter until Kevorkian's lawyers
arrived at 8:30 p.m., the Free Press reported. By that time, Roosevelt
Dawson had already died.
However, since authorities knew what was going on and where, they were
able to retrieve much evidence from the scene, making a prosecution possible.
In previous cases, when bodies were merely dropped off at hospitals or abandoned
in hotel rooms, practically no evidence that could be used against Kevorkian
was found.
In addition, since Dawson was not able to move at all, he must have had
direct help to inject the poison into his system. "This one was definitely
a homicide," Bob Allegrina, an investigator in the Oakland County medical
examiner's office, told the Detroit News.
"While some euthanasia advocates have attempted to distance themselves
from Jack Kevorkian, it is noteworthy that in a letter submitted to a Michigan
newspaper Derek Humphry, the founder of the Hemlock Society, has endorsed
Kevorkian's actions with regard to Roosevelt Dawson," said Burke Balch,
director of NRLC's Department of Medical Ethics. "Any remaining claim
that euthanasia killings will be 'carefully' limited to those with terminal
illness stands exposed as a charade, briefly adopted as a tactical step
to accustom Americans to the idea of death as a 'solution' to human problems."