I remember hearing about him as a child. He was truly a paradox of a man. On one side of the coin he wore a white coat and a stethescope. If you flipped the coin over the man held a fatal needle over a dying patient. A doctor who killed people. Who had heard of such a thing? The only thing cementing him as an evil mastermind was a true wildcard, though. The people he killed wanted to die. Some people called him a monster, some called him a saint, but the name they all seemed to agreed on was Kevorkian.
I can't remember feeling any certain way about the doctor at the time. I was a child born in Oklahoma who was growing up in Texas. I had people like Timothy McVeigh and David Koresh to worry about. Still to this day, I have yet to make a desicion for or against assisted suicide. Somehow, though, the subject has entered my life again. It is now becoming a hot topic in Montana.
To look at this controversial topic fairly, I have located two editorials online. These opposing articles are very different in many ways, and are linked below for easy reference.
Pro Assisted Suicide
We have a right to choose our end
Anti Assisted Suicide
Physician-assisted suicide: a recipe for elder abuse and the illusion of personal choice
Our first editorial is coined by Gary Bauslaugh and is titled "We have a right to chose our end." This particular article is short and to the point. It starts by generalizing the views of Canadians as being almost unanimously for assisted suicide. Bauslaugh delivers his ideas as a collective Canadian audience called "We." He makes a statement suggesting that there is nothing wrong with wanting to live a long life, but he quickly counters with strong words about the forbidding opposition. Mr. Bauslaugh paints a picture of a disabled man relieved of his ailments by assisted suicide as a painless thing, and calls the alternative "grisly" and "disturbing." The views of the author in this editorial are clear, but the lack of evidence and force-fed bias do little to win over the undecided reader.
The second editorial "Physician-assisted suicide: a recipe for elder abuse and the illusion of personal choice" by Alex Schadenberg offers a very different approach to the subject. Instead of bombarding the reader with bias right off the bat, it allows information to slowly gather into an opinion. This editorial is broken up into several sections,and each of these sections borrow from cited works about the subject. This article rarely attempts to grab for pure human emotion, but when it does it is mostly effective. One example would be a "terminal" patient that could have chosen a suicide solution when it was projected that she had only six months left to live. She denied the solution, and upon trying the alternative, lived to see ten plus more years. One of the main points of this anti-assisted suicide publishing is to make the reader aware of the possible abuse of the elderly. In suggesting suicide as an easy way out to a person who does not believe they have much left to live for, a selfish person may be able to immorally benefit from that elderly person giving in. The author seems to believe dignity belongs to a person regardless of age or disability, and assisted suicide may diminish that dignity.
While I do not necessarily agree with the points given in the second selection, I do agree that the delivery has much more potential to impact a previously uninformed mind. These two authors agree on almost nothing. One editorial was based on pure passion, and the other was a belief formed from cited research. While the later method may not be as fun to read, it is much more helpful in getting a basic point across.
I am still a child at heart, and I have yet to come to a conclusion on what to believe about this issue. One thing my inner child does relate to though, is telling me that you are right, can only make me want to prove you wrong.
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