Hello? Michigan, are you there??

written by Eric Tune

To those of you in the know, greetings from reality. I say those of you in the know, because sadly, some of you don’t, in fact, know. Let’s take the state of Michigan, for example, a large mass of clueless people.

The state of Michigan is larger than many countries in the world in both land mass and population, and you would think they would “get it”. But they don’t. While the rest of us teeter on the brink of the 21st century, Michigan is still enforcing “blue” laws and prosecuting people for swearing in public and other such nonsense. The people of the state have continuously elected the epitome of bureaucratic BS artists who care more about catering to the special interest groups than for the rights of the common people who live there. Now, as I tee off on Michigan, let’s examine the latest event to put the state in the “slimelight”.

Now unless you have been living in a broom closet for the past decade you should at least be familiar in passing with Dr. Jack Kevorkian. He is the doctor that has helped over 130 people who were in the grip of horrifically painful, terminal illnesses to end their suffering.

Dr. Kevorkian, aka “the suicide doctor”. The state of insanity….er…Michigan has seen fit to prosecute 70 year-old Dr. Kevorkian for murder. His alleged victim: Thomas Youk, a 52 year-old man who was suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The state of Michigan has a law against “assisted suicide”. To Michigan, a person does not have the right to choose whether or not they want to live in agony, causing both suffering for themselves and their loved ones. No, in Michigan, you have to live with it. How did this incredibly STUPID law get on the books in the first place? Well, again, there’s that broom closet looming, because we all know how laws like these get on the books: special interest groups. Interest groups have the power and money to lobby the lawmakers. So who is responsible?

Lets see… how about doctors, for starters. No, not all of them, but some of them have a lot to lose if “assisted suicide” were an option on your insurance formulary. How? Well, many doctors get paid umpteen thousands of dollars by keeping you or your loved one hooked up to expensive machines which can basically keep you technically alive indefinitely. You stay in the hospital on the machine, with it breathing for you, pumping your blood, filtering your blood, etc., the hospital staff coming in to care for you as if you were a houseplant, and the insurance pays for it, and pays for the doctor to visit your living corpse every so often and … BAM, $1500 dollars for him to come in off the fairway to see if you’ve flat-lined yet. On today’s technology, the doctor’s going to be getting paid for a long time.

How about the good Reverend So-and-so. Isn’t it a sin in the Christian religion to commit suicide? They claim that only their God has the right to choose when you die, and that by choosing for yourself, you’ve sinned. To them, you’ve got to suffer in agony until their “benevolent” deity decides you’ve had enough.

But wait! Isn’t this a mixing of “church and state”, which is supposedly against the law? Yeah, it is. But these church groups have got so many unfortunately clueless people in their herds, that they have a near endless supply of money coming in from “donations” (extortion, but that’s another story) given by their herd members who are only trying to save their souls….that they have the money and political muscle to push for the kinds of laws that have people being put in jail for swearing, and for helping somebody end their years of suffering. Amen, pass the tax write-off.

Who else stands to lose if assisted suicide were legal? Pharmaceutical companies, even insurance companies. Do these matter? In a world of moral right and moral wrong, hell no. What matters is the wishes of the mentally competent but suffering individual who chooses not to suffer anymore.

Now, the first question in this Kevorkian case that begs answering is: How can you be accused of murdering someone who asks, no, begs you to end his life, and thus end their suffering? How can this happen? Answer: It can’t. You can’t have a murder if there is no victim. A victim, by definition, is “an unfortunate person who suffers from some adverse circumstance.” Now Thomas Youk, by definition, cannot be called a victim of murder. A murder victim is someone who was killed against their will, not who wanted to die to end their suffering. Thomas Youk was a victim of fate, and a victim of a horrible disease, but not of a crime committed by Jack Kevorkian.

This farce of a trial is ongoing. Dr. Kevorkian may have made a tactical error in deciding to represent himself in the case, against the advice of his attorneys. So far, the cards have come up badly against him. Judge Jessica Cooper prevented Dr. Kevorkian from calling his first witness, Thomas Youk’s widow, Melody.

Amazingly, rather than trying to do what is right versus what is wrong, the prosecutors in the case, in order to keep the jury from hearing about the suffering of Thomas Youk, dropped the charges of “assisted suicide” against Kevorkian, leaving the charge of murder and effectively denying Kevorkian his right to due process by denying him the right to produce witnesses in his defense. The prosecutors are not concerned with any sort of justice in the case, but only in getting a conviction on the man who has so far eluded their grasp. (Tried four times, Dr. Kevorkian was acquitted three times, and one trial resulted in a mistrial).

My hope is that Dr. Kevorkian is “crazy like a fox” in representing himself. With the pirana-like prosecutors smelling blood in the water by denying Kevorkian his right to present his witnesses, he may lose the case…. But then again you don’t get to take your case to the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, by winning your case. If Dr. Kevorkian loses in Oakland County, Michigan, he may still win in front of the Supreme Court justices, which would make anything else patently stupid that Michigan does regarding assisted suicide unconstitutional. This may be what Dr. Kevorkian wants all along, and I sure hope he’s got a plan. Like many people, I think it’s pretty damn stupid that the people who making the laws against assisted suicide have never been the ones who’ve had to suffer through an excruciatingly painful, terminal illness, or been the friend or family member of someone who has. Maybe if they were made to suffer like these patients suffer, they might think twice about the manure they shovel and try to pass off as laws…but that is hoping for a lot.

This story isn’t finished yet. When I know more, you’ll know more.

END PART 1 OF….

Eric

No related posts.