Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 19, 1995 TAG: 9511170105
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A trip deeper inside the paper found what has become a routine story. For the 26th time, Jack Kevorkian participated in the suicide of someone he decided needed his help to die.
There apparently was one little complication this time, though. The woman Kevorkian helped ferry across the Styx may not have been facing - not immediately, anyway - the spread of breast cancer. The medical examiner who tested her body for the presence of cancer found none.
Kevorkian's lawyer - the estimable Geoffrey Fieger - said Patricia Cashman feared becoming ``a vegetable,'' unable to care for herself. So, she asked Kevorkian to help her die.
The kind-hearted old soul was happy to oblige.
Maybe too happy.
In a television interview, Kevorkian's lawyer wouldn't let him answer a question about the extent to which he participated in Cashman's death. Kevorkian said he was sure the 58-year-old woman had cancer. He always checks to make sure, he said.
But the Oakland County, Mich., medical examiner determined otherwise. No lingering trace of the disease.
This is precisely the kind of horror story that was bound to be written by a renegade like Kevorkian.
None of us wants to see our loved ones or ourselves forced to live in unbearable pain when death is inevitable. All of us have heard of cases in which doctors prescribed enough pain medication that the patient overdosed himself and died prematurely. We know of cases in which food or respirators or other life support was cut off to end suffering.
That informal system of mercy killing - and it does amount to killing - is very different, however, from Kevorkian's method. It has its dangers, of course. Its potential for abuse.
But we know from our own experience that most of the time some safeguards are in place.
For one thing, most doctors - unlike the Kevorkians - seem to think such a prescription should be a last resort.
Most doctors consult with family. Most doctors willing to take such measures have a long-term relationship with the patient. And most doctors are willing to go to some lengths to control the pain of their terminally ill patients before even considering helping them die.
A year and a half ago, Kevorkian slipped through a loophole in Michigan's law against assisting a suicide. Since then, he's continued to practice death - not medicine - while authorities in that state and the rest of the country try to figure out how to stop him.
Part of the problem, of course, is that we're reluctant to do that. We don't want to talk about how to deal legally and ethically with the reality of physicians' participation in death. We don't want to deal with the hard problems of human suffering. Much as we may hate to admit it, Kevorkian is right about that.
A year-and-a-half ago, I wrote that we need to answer some questions. We need to define boundaries. Despite Kevorkian's rampage of death, we still haven't answered any of them.
For Patricia Cashman, the very question of whether death was imminent has not been answered.
Who should decide when death is close enough for assistance to be ethical? Should the family be consulted or have a veto? What methods of assistance are ethical? Should a review by other medical professionals be required? The questions go on and on.
As a society, we should have started answering those questions by now.
If we had, Patricia Cashman might never have felt she needed Jack Kevorkian, and she might be alive today.
by CNB