On May 26, 2009, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Al Pacino is considering the lead role in the upcoming biopic of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, You Don’t Know Jack. Pacino has long been a favorite of mine so I found the move just a bit of a disappointment.

Though the film certainly isn’t in the can yet and it’s far too early to start tossing barbs at producer Barry Levison, it’s fairly likely that the most negative aspects of Kevorkian’s history will never be committed to celluloid. Dr. Death (as he likes to call himself) has gotten quite a pass from society.

Even though he was convicted of second-degree murder in 1999 and admitted to assisting 150 people to end their lives, Kevorkian has enjoyed an almost bizarre public forgiveness and cult following. Some people have long viewed him as a compassionate soul who has been made a victim by overbearing and obsolete laws. But, peel away a few more layers of the Kevorkian onion and you’ll find some conflicting imagery.

Kevorkian’s line of work was pathology. As a clinical pathologist (and not an actual Medical Doctor), Kevorkian had neither the ability nor experience to accurately diagnose a patient as being terminally ill. Indeed, testimonies and evidence given during Kevorkian’s trial in Michigan’s criminal court reveal that a number of his victims did not suffer from any discernable terminal illness. In fact, a couple of them weren’t even sick.

In 1998, Kevorkian single-handedly ended the life of Thomas Youk, a 52-year old man with advanced Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). In a video tape later given to the television show 60 Minutes, Youk is seen giving his consent to end his life and Kevorkian administering the deadly cocktail via injection. Kevorkian dared law enforcement to come after him and they did, charging him with second-degree murder and possession of a controlled substance. At the time of the killing, Kevorkian had not held a license to practice medicine for over 8 years.

In his 1991 book, Prescription Medicine: The Goodness of Planned Death, Kevorkian admits to an almost fetish level fascination with human death and a desire to conduct human vivisection – that is the carrying out of medical experiments on dying patients. Kevorkian also admitted to initiating contact with death row inmates in hopes of garnering their permission to conduct what he labeled obitiatric research on them.

In the 1960s, Kevorkian fancied himself something of a painter and produced over 18 oils on canvass depicting death, cannibalism, illness and nightmares.

Kevorkian was paroled from prison in 2007 following his vow to never assist another person to die and a claim of his own terminal illness of Hepatitis C. He has not, however, missed an opportunity to campaign for euthanasia, care-rationing and assisted suicide. The University of Florida, a school that teaches the medical arts and life sciences, hosted Dr. Death in 2008 to discuss the pros and cons of assisted suicide with its student body.

His proponents continue to claim that Kevorkian was a visionary and a compassionate doctor when, in fact, the Hippocratic Oath compels people like Kevorkian to “do no harm” and “give no deadly poisons — even if asked.”

A doctor (yes, even a clinical pathologist) is in a position of public trust and tasked with only two jobs – promoting longevity and ensuring wellness. Killing the chronically ill, terminally ill or disabled members of our society as opposed to caring for them and solving their problems can’t be seen as a building block for misguided hero worship. Kevorkian is a killer. A convicted one. It is both saddening and disturbing to see his agenda of death painted in bright colors and sold as compassionate and forward-thinking.

It’s just killing people.

It’s a shame that someone of Al Pacino’s talent would consider such a tainted project but that’s most surely his prerogative and right. Still, if he knew all the layers to the Kevorkian onion, I wonder if he would feel any enthusiasm with Dr. Death on his list of characters.

Since late 2002, I’ve yammered on and on about the folks who promote a ‘right to die’ being nothing more than an agenda-driven group, looking to foster an ‘obligation to die’. Though I don’t claim to be a prophet (or, particularly bright, for that matter), the state of Idaho has punctuated this in legislation that looks as likely to be passed as a stone from the kidney of a devoted Guinness drinker.

Say a fine how-do-you-do to Senate Bill 1114 of the Health and Welfare Committee of Idaho. The bit I’m having some trouble warming up to reads like this:

If the ethics committee agrees with the attending physician that the treatment requested by the patient, the patient’s advance directive or surrogate decision maker is medically inappropriate or futile, the attending physician and health care facility shall take reasonable action to assist the patient or surrogate decision maker to arrange the patient’s transfer within fifteen (15) days to another health care provider selected by the patient or surrogate decision maker who is willing to assume the treatment of the patient.

What does that bit of legalese mean? This:

If you have an advanced directive or protective medical directive that insists on certain types of medical treatment, they can be overridden by a hospital, nursing home or rehabilitation facility’s ethics committee. If you have an attorney-in-fact, guardian-in-fact or named healthcare surrogate, he or she is just as powerless as your own written directive.

The fact that they’re giving you 15 days to beat feet shouldn’t be of much comfort. Keep your eye fixedly trained on the notion purported by this legislation that “If the ethics committee agrees with the attending physician that the treatment requested by the patient, the patient’s advance directive or surrogate decision maker is medically inappropriate…”

Now, what facility would have you with an ethics committee’s committal of futile care protocol? Also, what if your condition is such that transport could be threatening to your life?

It gets better:

The health care facility shall provide reasonably necessary life sustaining treatment within the capacity and capability of the health care facility until the patient is transferred or until the expiration of the fifteen (15) day period described above, whichever occurs first.

Sounds like a tire warranty.

Well, my friends, these bullshit artists who told you the right to die movement was about personal sovereignty and choice lied in your face like the politicians who support such pernicious protocols. None of this has anything to do with your dignity, privacy or choice. Choice. That’s a word they delight in tossing around like so many beads at a Mardi Gras parade. In the end, it’s all cheap, meaningless and just plain stupid.

But, don’t take my word for it. Read the legislation for yourself. Here.
What types of care are inappropriate or futile to you? What sort of care do you consider an absolute right?

Doesn’t matter anymore. At least, not in Idaho.

This is precisely what I predicted when I wrote Means to an End in 2003. Getting people to accept healthcare rationing, the so-called ‘right to die’ and the notion that there is more dignity in being iced than dying when you’re good and bloody ready to is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt at classifying human beings as ‘worth it’ and ‘not so much’. And, you should be appalled.

If your healthcare directive states: “I want (A),” and those charged with your care declare: “We’re not giving her (A),” where’s the choice part kick in? Sounds to be like a human being getting sabotaged by a bottom-line-thinking institution. Not exactly the personal sovereignty the right-to-die people keep espousing.

This type of legislation should scare the shit out of you. Sadly, I have no solid advice, but I’ll leave you with this:

Don’t get ill in Idaho.

If you’re demented, you’re wasting people’s lives – your family’s lives – and you’re wasting the resources of the National Health Service.

Those aren’t my words. They’re the words of one Lady Warnock, a veteran Government adviser in the United Kingdom, who is touting the values of promoting active euthanasia on patients who have become demented due to advanced age or Alzheimer’s Disease.

Ironically, she’s 84 years old.

Warnock is a philosopher – perhaps of the same ilk as Peter Singer who openly champions infanticide against disabled newborns. She chaired a government-sanctioned committee on embryonic therapies and is an open, vocal supporter of euthanasia.

For years, quite literally, I’ve bemoaned right-to-die organizations such as Compassion and Choices (the former Hemlock Society) for promoting not a right to die; rather, a duty to die.

People within such organizations, along with their guns-for-hire in the mainstream media have always denied such charges. Instead, they say, they’re trying to break down the limitations of choice at the end of life.

But, I ask you: if someone is not dying and the government pursues the authority to make them dead because of a disability, how is that a choice?

The problem with all of this rhetoric is not the conversation over quality of life, sanctity of life or intrinsic moral value of the individual’s life. The problem is that this brand of social policy devalues the individual, their rights and their personal choices.

In her interview with Life and Work magazine (a publication of the Church of Scotland), Warnock explains that she sees nothing wrong with someone being “put down” if the end result benefits that person’s family or society at large.

There is something incredibly twisted in that logic and it flies in the face of the entire “choice” argument that right-to-die organizations have bellied up to for decades.

This whole method of thinking assumes that society – not the individual – is the ultimate owner of your body, your life and your existence. This thinking line establishes that a disability or illness strips you of your personhood, rights and sovereignty. Not a lot of choice in that kind of policy, is there?

In creating a duty to die philosophy, we have to assume that your birthrights all have term limits. Those limits are triggered by illness, disability, age, weakness or inability to properly fund your own healthcare services. Though I’d agree that birthrights do have term limits, I tend to think the end of the term is upon your natural death and not when someone else labels you a burden upon society.

Look at it this way. People without homes and jobs can easily be classified as a burden on society. Women escaping abusive relationships and seeking halfway home assistance can be viewed in the same light. Even people who receive WIC benefits for infant children tax society to some degree. Is anyone openly promoting the idea of “helping them to die?”

Certainly not. Because homeless people, abused women and young families got where they are because society isn’t always fair and life is most certainly not easy. We also recognize the value in helping someone help themselves.

But, when it comes to our elder and disabled populations, that sense of charity seems to be nowhere to be found.

Promoting a duty to die is an egregious invasion of privacy. Certainly so when you start talking about getting the government involved. It’s also a failure to see a human being as a sovereign, unique individual. Placing the label “burden” on the less fortunate has such a Third Reich quality to it that the very notion is repugnant.
So, Lady Warnock. If you would suggest that people who are unable to look after themselves have a duty to die, I would like to recommend that people who see them as less than human have a duty to retire.

What you’re selling is not choice. It’s death. That’s it. Just death.

And, for those who wish to live their lives out naturally, you and your like-minded champions of elimination are endangering the very things you claim to promote: dignity, choice, personal sovereignty. That’s not compassion. That’s stealing the only true property anyone actually owns – their self.