Like a lot of folks who get paid to create silly remarks, I wrote my share of Dr. Kevorkian jokes. I mean, a doctor who kills people? It was stealing the money to come up with lines about that…and Dr. Kevorkian made it even easier by occasionally saying something outrageous or dressing up in a funny costume.
And yet I've long believed that his essential cause — that people deserve the right to die with dignity and without prolonging pain and suffering — was correct. I'm not saying the Doctor always served that cause well or that he didn't break the law…but I think that law is wrong and you have to have a certain admiration for a man who puts his life on the line for something like that. I have seen no report, no article…nothing to suggest he had anything but selfless motives. You sure don't get rich being constantly on trial for murder.
We had some family friends whose later years were a perfect example of why it is barbaric and just plain cruel to prolong some lives beyond a certain point. They were two of the finest, most wonderful people you could ever want to know but then the husband's health deteriorated rapidly to the point of No Return. There was no chance he could ever again have anything resembling an actual life…and taking care of him killed his beloved spouse of 50+ years. Never mind that it also wiped out their savings and forced her to sell their condo. It destroyed her health, as well. If the kind of thing Jack Kevorkian advocated had been available, the husband would have demanded it, he could have died without so much pain…and his widow would have lived twenty more years of comfort instead of ten months of impending homelessness.
Yes, yes. I understand how some believe that life is sacred and that it should be preserved at all cost. I just don't understand how anyone can look at situations like that — and there are so many — and see any sort of compassion or humanity…or even much of a respect for life.
I had a friendly debate recently with a comedy writer friend over whether it's fair or even honest to base jokes on premises you know to be false. Al Gore never said "I invented the Internet" but it was sure a breeze to write humorous material that claimed he had. I composed some of that too, knowing full well that it was perpetuating a fib that his political opponents were spreading about him. I wonder to what extent all the easy giggles that could be wrung out of Dr. Kevorkian's exploits distorted a serious issue and made his campaigns seem frivolous or devious or just plain unserious. There is something to be said for the viewpoint that comedians and comedy writers aren't supposed to frame public opinion or report news. They're just here to get laughs.
And then there's the other side of that question. I don't have an answer for myself, let alone for anyone else. It's just that every time I've seen the name of Dr. Jack Kevorkian in the last ten or so years, I wonder if we wouldn't be better off if we'd taken that man more seriously.