ASSISTED SUICIDE AND ITS DANGERS
By Robert Mauro
As a disabled person who uses a respirator and a
motorized wheelchair, and who has written five books,
and who has created this web site, I am troubled by the public's
tacit acceptance of assisted suicide for the severely disabled
and the terminally ill. So should you be -- especially if you're
a person with a disability, elderly, or the family or friend of
someone who is terminally ill. And CBS's showing the murder of
Thomas Youk (60 MINUTES, 11/22/98) only lends fuel to this fiery
debate. But perhaps that's a good thing. The issue needs to be
debated. It's literally a matter of life and death. Mine. And
yours!
Disability does not mean inability -- and it should
not mean assisted suicide. Why this rush to legalize
physician-assisted suicide? Does Society see us, the disabled
and the elderly, costing the State too much to keep alive? Does
Society think we, the disabled and the elderly, are inconvenient?
Are we less valued by Society than the young and those without
disabilities? In fact, is this debate over physician-assisted
suicide really about dying with dignity or simply about dealing
with dollars?
Hugh Gregory Gallagher, a polio survivor, wrote FDR: THE
SPLENDID DECEPTION and BY TRUST BETRAYED: PATIENTS, PHYSICIANS
AND THE LICENSE TO KILL IN THE THIRD REICH. In BY TRUST
BETRAYED, Gallagher tells how in Nazi Germany from 1939-1941
"mercy" killing of the disabled was State policy -- until the
parents of the "euthanized," their friends, and the Church
ended this policy. By then over 200,000 disabled men, women
and children had been murdered by the Third Reich under their
T-4 Program. This was the prelude to the Holocaust.
Today, in the Netherlands, where euthanasia is legal, CNN
has reported on studies which have shown that over 20,000
persons were involuntarily euthanized. When asked why
the doctors put to death these persons without their
permission, the doctors said because the patients were too
old, too ill, and had a poor quality of life.
In our country there is support for Dr. Jack Kevorkian
and physician-assisted suicide. Juries routinely acquitted
him until he was finally convicted and sent to prison for the
murder of Thomas Youk, who had ALS. Although Kevorkian
previously never injected lethal drugs or turned on the gas
himself (for "legal" reasons), he finally did so when he killed
Thomas Youk, as seen on CBS's 60 Minutes the night of November
22, 1998.
Again, why this rush to terminate the lives of disabled,
elderly and terminal ill people? Could it be, as I believe,
dollars? How much are we, the disabled, the elderly and
terminally ill worth to Society? To the State? In Hitler's
Germany mentally and physically disabled persons were the first
to be murdered by the State. It was all part of The Final
Solution. And if we allow the "right to die" to become public
policy and socially acceptable, disabled persons and our elderly
will be the first to be murdered in a new State-approved Final
Solution. Kevorkian Centers might turn into the new national
franchise. One wonders if instead of McDonalds signs boasting
800,000,000,000 served, we'll see Kevorkian Centers with sings
boasting.... Well, you get the picture.
The right to die has become a much-talked-about topic.
The media, and many others outside the media, such as the
Hemlock Society, seem to say it's perfectly okay for the
elderly and the disabled, especially the comatose and the
terminally ill elderly and disabled, to be terminated or for
us to take our own lives, or be assisted in suicide, rather
than for us to get the help we need to continue to live. In
many articles, the media use as examples apparent "hopeless"
cases. Someone in a coma who doctors say "will never wake
up." Or Thomas Youk, shown being killed by Kevorkian on 60
Minutes.
Again, in my experience as a disabled person who works
with other disabled men and women, I know that doctors are not
always correct. Moreover, it is too easy to characterize all
of us elderly, disabled or terminally ill human beings as
useless and to abandon us to death. Hitler referred to
persons with disabilities as "useless eaters." Is that what
is happening here?
We all have a right to live. One's age or severity of
disability, one's seeming "inconvenience" to society, does not
and must not give any of us the right to end anyone's life.
Movies like "Whose Life Is It Anyway," and "Right to
Die," various articles in the newspapers, and segments on TV,
like the 60 Minutes' show, set up powerful arguments, which
seemingly justify the right of the elderly and the terminally
ill, or we, the disabled, to end our existence, or have our
lives terminated by a guardian or a doctor, at times
without our permission. What the media don't usually
show, however, are the subtle forms of government and medical
neglect, which prematurely end the lives of persons presently
deemed "too old," "too ill," "too poor," "too vegetative," or
"too disabled," to receive the necessary treatment they need
to prolong and even to save their lives.
These elderly or disabled men, women and children do not
always receive the routine or heroic care they're entitled to.
"Why should they?" some authorities ask. "They're old or
disabled, or 'hopeless' cases. Let them die. It's more
'humane'. It's cost effective."
As a result of all this recent emphasis on the "romantic"
right to die and the seeming "dignity of death," and books
like FINAL EXIT, we elderly and disabled people are being
helped even less to live. Rather, we are being helped to die,
with suicide machines and books.
The poor, the old and we, the disabled, do not always die
with dignity. More often we die out of a lack of medical
treatment or adequate research. Blame it also on insensitivity
and downright negligence. Blame it on prejudice! We die out of
an ever lessening value placed on human life, especially when
that life belongs to our elderly, our poor or to us, the
physically and mentally disabled. And moreover we die -- or
commit suicide -- out of hopelessness.
Today with such seemingly hopeless diseases as ALS,
cancer and AIDS, we, as individuals, cannot surrender to
death. Or say it's okay to take one's own life. Or to murder
the disabled as Kevorkian routinely did. To do so is not only
inhuman, but it is a form of surrender. Furthermore, it takes
the responsibility off the State and Society to provide the
medical care we all need, whether we're elderly, poor, or
disabled. If the right to die becomes acceptable or is made
U.S. policy, it will chip away at the government funding
needed by the medical profession for research -- research to
maintain and prolong all our lives.
We must not surrender to death, or, as the poet Dylan
Thomas said to his dying father, "go gently into that good
night," but fight, fight to find ways to honor and preserve
life.
Most disabled people I know, including myself, regardless
of our disability, want to live for as long as possible.
Whether or not there is dignity in death, there is a great
deal of dignity in each of our lives. Disabled men and women
like myself and great thinkers like Stephen Hawking, the
renowned British cosmologist, who regardless of his
devastating disability (ALS) continues to discover new worlds,
deserve to live as long as possible.
True, we can't all discover new worlds, but we can all
help create a better world for all of us to live in; however,
only if we all value each and everyone's life -- and not just
the lives of those who appear on the surface to be happy and
healthy.
INSIDE THE MIND OF DOCTOR DEATH
By Robert Mauro
What is suicide doctor Jack Kevorkian thinking now -- now
that he's a convicted murder serving 10 to 15 years for the
killing of Thomas Youk, who had ALS? As a disabled person
with what Kevorkian would consider a "terminal illness," I'd
like to know. I use a respirator to breath. I have for
thirty years. Nevertheless, I enjoy life.
Kevorkian -- now behind bars in a Michigan prison --
probably still sees people with disabilities as "hopeless
cases." In Nazi Germany Hitler saw the mentally and
physically disabled as "useless eaters." Kevorkian moved
towards that fiendish mind set when he began killing men and
women with disabilities. Before being stopped by a Michigan
jury, he had killed 130 of us. He even suggested taking the
organs from us "hopeless cases" and giving them to more
"useful" citizens. In other words, the disabled should get
out of the way and make room for the nondisabled.
Kevorkian is unable to see someone who is terminally ill
or physically disabled as a contributing member of society.
To Dr. Death people like iron lung user Ed Roberts, who
started the Independent Living Movement in the United States, are
better off dead. What is Jack Kevorkian thinking? Can't he see
the humanity in those of us with disabilities?
In Nazi propaganda films, actors portrayed disability as
"hopeless" and disabled people as an "economic burden on
society." The Nazis used these films as part of their T-4
program, which eventually resulted in the gassing of hundreds
of thousands of mentally and physically disabled men, women,
and children -- laying the ground work for the Holocaust.
Today we hear voices saying that we should not let the
terminally ill and the disabled suffer. According to those
negative voices, we, the disabled and the terminally ill, are
better off dead. And Kevorkian was the pied piper of that
assisted suicide movement.
In the Netherlands, where assisted suicide is legal,
thousands were euthanized in one year without their
permission. When the doctors were asked why they murdered these
people, they said "they had a poor quality of life." As a
result, disabled Netherlanders are now carrying cards saying DO
NOT EUTHANIZE.
So what exactly is going on in the mind Jack Kevorkian?
Will he now become a martyr to his cause? I hope not. We
must not let that happen. Jack Kevorkian must be seen for
what he is and was -- a murderer.
My fear is that Society does not really care enough to
stop what Kevorkian believed in: the killing of us disabled
persons. As Dickens has Scrooge say in A Christmas
Carol: "...better to decrease the surplus population." I
fear Society sees the killing of us men and women with
disabilities as legitimate. And they still see Kevorkian not
as a pariah, but as a saviors, someone who had a worthwhile
mission.
I for one do not intend to go gently into Dr. Death's
"good night." But as poet Dylan Thomas says, I intend to
"fight, fight the dying of the light." We all must!
Let's hope this is the end of Dr. Death and his deadly
mission. Let us also pray that this is the beginning of
better ways of easing the pain of the terminally ill and
bettering the lives of all men, women, and children with and
without disabilities.