JACK KEVORKIAN: FROM FRONT PAGE TO OBSCURITY
Windsor Star
March 28 2008
Canada
His candidacy is a cry for attention from someone the world has
passed by.
So. Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the man who made assisted suicide a household
word back in the 1990s, wants to go to Congress? Everyone’s first
reaction was pretty much the same: We can’t wait to see his health
care plan.
That, or, I’ll bet there’s a few bills lying around the House he
would really like to kill.
TWO THINGS ARE CERTAIN:
Congressman Kevorkian would be a full-employment guarantee for Jay
Leno, Dave Letterman, and every standup comedian in every coffee
house from here to Botswana.
And — it isn’t going to happen.
He almost certainly won’t get on the ballot.
Reporters took his announcement far too seriously, and anyone who
knows the aging, cantankerous former pathologist knows he is unlikely
to have either the stamina or the stick-to-it qualities needed to
collect enough signatures to get on the ballot as an independent.
His candidacy is a cry for attention from someone the world has passed
by, and whose 15 minutes of fame was used up soon after he went to
prison nine years ago.
For the last year, he has been living the life of a forgotten
recluse. Since being paroled from prison, he has been mostly
forgotten. He lives in a downscale apartment complex in a bustling
suburb, where he can sometimes be seen at the Farmers’ Market across
the street, buying apples.
He’ll turn 80 in May. He no longer drives and shuns most of his old
friends, mostly avoids the media.
When I asked to meet with him, he declined, telling his doctor,
"He always feels he has to be objective."
These days, he sometimes walks down the street unrecognized. That’s
a far cry from the early 1990s, when scarcely a day went by when Dr.
Jack Kevorkian wasn’t on the front pages.
The man who made the suicide machine famous, and who, by his count,
"helped" 130 cross the divide, appeared on the cover of Time magazine,
was the subject of endless documentaries and owned all the nightly
news shows. (I wrote about him for Esquire, Vanity Fair and the New
York Times.)
Thanks in large part to his flamboyant and brilliant lawyer, Geoffrey
Fieger, he was acquitted in trial after trial. Prosecutors gave up;
Kevorkian-style assisted suicide became de facto legal in metropolitan
Detroit. Then he got reckless and fired his lawyer.
Next he performed "active euthanasia" on a dying man with Lou Gehrig’s
disease, videotaped the procedure, and sent the tape to Mike Wallace
at 60 Minutes.
Almost reluctantly, the authorities charged him with murder.
Kevorkian was totally incompetent as his own lawyer. He ranted about
Thomas Jefferson and ancient Rome.
In his summary, Kevorkian pointed a boney finger at the jury. "Do I
look like a mass murder to you?" he yelled. Well, come to think of it
… He was convicted of second-degree murder. He grinned. "Now I’ve
got them right where I want them," he said. He thought the public
would demand his release. He was wrong. They forgot him.
That’s not to say he didn’t have an impact. The hospice movement
flourished as an alternative to inhaling gas in a rusty van.
Doctors have become far more willing to give their patients proper
pain medication, especially when they’re dying.
His candidacy is a cry for attention from someone the world has
passed by.
That doesn’t mean Kevorkian was altogether wrong. Most of his patients
were rational, competent and educated, including a physician with
bone cancer, and had concluded it was time for them to go. That was
why juries acquitted Kevorkian.
Yet his antics eventually put people off. "We came to realize this
was about his own psychological needs, not the patients," the sister
of one of his early suicides told me.
Why would he want to be in Congress? Essentially, he has become a
libertarian. (He has only voted twice in his life — for Fieger for
governor and for a libertarian running for president.)
His main cause is the somewhat obscure ninth amendment to the
constitution: "The enumeration in the constitution, of certain rights
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the
people."
Kevorkian sees that as protecting the right to seek assisted suicide
or choose not to wear a seatbelt while driving.
Democrats were initially dismayed by his candidacy. They are gearing
up to spend millions on behalf of Gary Peters, who is challenging
longtime U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg.
Kevorkian might take some anti-Knollenberg votes. But in order to get
on the ballot, he needs 3,000 valid signatures on official petitions
by July. The odds are against him doing that by himself. The odds
against him staying focused on the task are even longer. What he
might consider is that sometimes, wisdom doesn’t lie in trying to
extend your moment of fame. Sometimes, you need to know when to retire
gracefully from the field.
Jack Lessenberry, a member of Wayne State University’s journalism
faculty, writes on issues and people in Michigan.