JACK KEVORKIAN'S LAWYER ON THE MORALITY 
OF PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE

Geoffrey Fieger's Speech to the Ford Hall Forum, September 29, 1996, Blackman Auditorium

. . . I'm going to give you some news. This is significant. I'm going to announce today, just a short time ago, Dr. Kevorkian assisted Richard G. Faw, a medical doctor, age seventy-one, a psychiatrist and general practitioner, in ending his suffering. Dr. Faw was brought by Dr. Kevorkian to the Beaumont Hospital just a few short moments ago. Dr. Faw-do you think he knew what he was doing? He was a psychiatrist. He was a general practitioner. He was seventy-one years old. He was dying of colorectal cancer that had metastasized to all of his lymph nodes, to his liver, to his pelvis, and to his sacrum. He was in excruciating pain. Is there anyone among us who would tell Dr. Faw, a psychiatrist, a general practitioner, a medical doctor, that he didn't know what he was doing, that he didn't have the right to make a decision about how much suffering he would have to undergo before he died? Anyone among us?

You see, that's what I don't understand. What's the problem with this? . . . I'm standing here six years after we began. More than six years. Jack first helped Janet Adkins in June of 1990. How is it, six years later, that we're still debating an issue that is so fundamentally, obviously rational and right? It's beyond me . . . [T]he polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans support this issue. This is not fifty-fifty. It ain't even close. It's about seventy-thirty. We enjoy . . . more support on this issue than Clinton and Dole enjoy on any of their issues whatsoever. If Jack Kevorkian was running for president of the United States on this issue, he would win everything. He would win every single state. We win across all demographic lines. We win across all age lines. We win across all racial lines. We win across all religious lines. Even the fundamentalists, who are against abortion, can understand this issue, because we're not talking about unborn children. We're talking about mentally competent dying or suffering adults, making a decision as to how much they have to suffer. Now, who among us?

I don't know Dr. Faw. I never will. I knew Judith Curren [the Pembroke, Massachusetts, woman who committed suicide with Dr. Kevorkian's assistance on August 15, 1996] a little, only having spoken to her on the phone, and you've got this rag here [the Boston Herald], what a rag that is! I saw-somebody faxed me the headline: "Murder!" You know, we've got a medical examiner in Michigan who rules everything-every one of Jack's cases-is murder. Dr. Faw will be ruled a homicide, a murder. It's ridiculous, but it looked like this paper just woke up after sleeping seventy years, because it didn't apparently know that the medical examiner of Oakland County, along with the prosecutor, who . . . just . . . got defeated in the primary election to an unknown solely on this issue of having persecuted Kevorkian for the last six years . . . calls every case a homicide. And I promise you, he will call the case of Dr. Faw a homicide. Which is absurd, isn't it? It's absurd. It's absurd that in America in 1996, Dr. Faw, seventy-one years old, doesn't have the right to make a decision about how much suffering he has to undergo.

Now, can you imagine? I can't imagine his suffering, and I'm sure none of you can either, although in your families, you might have seen it. You might have seen a loved one, because frankly, if you feel good enough to come here, you don't know what I'm talking about, because this is a very abstract idea, the idea that death itself is preferable, is more desirable, than continuing life. I can't imagine that. I can't-I've never been at that point, and I can't imagine it. So, it's just an abstract idea, but having seen human suffering-and I'm quite certain, being involved in this issue-there comes a point in human existence, if you live long enough and you suffer long enough, and the suffering is extreme, there comes a point in human existence where something clicks. And at that point, just existing is not desirable anymore. Just existing and living for the sake of living isn't.

And don't tell me, "Well, it's not just for the sake of living. You've got to continue to suffer for . . . this, that, or the other thing." Well, that's fine as long as the person who's suffering feels that way. But you can't impose it on somebody else. That's this issue. It's so simple. I have never heard, ladies and gentlemen, why. In the last six years, I have never heard why a mentally competent dying or suffering adult in America can't make a decision, a rational decision, about how much suffering they have to undergo before they die, without government telling them. Do you understand how simple an issue this is? Why are we fighting about it?

Now, of course, it's been totally misrepresented to you. If you read the paper about this issue, you've got no idea what's going on. You think Jack Kevorkian is running some circus out in Oakland County in Michigan with me and he just goes around-you just call up Jack Kevorkian and he kills you. That's ridiculous. You read this stuff, it's just totally sensational drivel . . . I'll bet you the Boston Globe supports the right to abortion. Well, hey! We're not talking about an unborn fetus. We're not talking about a third party. We're talking about me, deciding for myself how much I have to suffer. Now, how the hell can the Boston Globe or the Boston . . . Herald or National Enquirer . . . not be for that? It's impossible, unless you're so stupid that you don't know your name when you wake up in the morning, or you've got some other agenda. You understand? . . .

Now, this issue affects every single one of us. Every single one of you at some time in your life will face this issue. If, God forbid, you're lucky enough to die in your sleep of a heart attack and you don't know you're dead, that's good. But, at some point . . . if you don't die in your sleep, somebody in your family or yourself will face this issue. This cuts across every barrier. It doesn't only apply to women of reproductive years. It doesn't only apply to African Americans. It doesn't only apply to men or women. It applies to every single human being.

And guess what? Even though it hasn't been portrayed like it, it is the civil rights issue, because let me just tell you something: If you don't stand up and say, "Hell no! I own my life! You Right to Lifers! You Christian Coalition! Anybody who tells me that the government can tell me when I've got to die," you ain't free. You ain't free! And if you allow it to happen, you've given your freedom away. You understand, they take away your freedoms in the shadows. They don't come right out and say, "We own your life," right? They just say, "Oh well, we've got to protect [you from] Dr. Kevorkian, because if all of a sudden we allow Dr. Kevorkian to help some sick and dying people, then it will suddenly become an imperative, and we'll be killing old people, and it will be an obligation to die, and the cripples will die, and the old people will die, and the infirm will be killed, and doctors become killers." Why do you believe that? If you believe that, you'll believe anything! You'll believe anything . . . They rationalize. They love to talk about it for ten thousand years . . . Am I getting through to you guys? Am I making myself clear? Is my Dale Carnegie course working? . . . This is the civil rights issue.

. . . [W]hat's so unusual is that we've done it without marching, because really, the people who we represent are too sick to get up and march. They know, but they're confined to beds. They're confined to suffering. And frankly, I think you can understand it just rationally what we're saying. Because people feel that the reason we've won the hearts and the minds is because this is just so rational. It just has to do with the fact that we have an absolute right in this country, in America, if we are free, to be left alone. There are certain things that are absolutely so fundamental. We have the right to be left alone.

. . . [T]hese hypocrites who populate our state governments and these hypocrites who populate the national government . . . you buy it from them, and you listen to them, and you allow them to lie to you constantly, and you know they lie, and you want them to be your politicians, and I can't understand it. Then you got a guy like Kevorkian who stands up, who tells you the truth, and of course, you guys support him, frankly, the rank and file. But the media treats him like he's some kind of wide-eyed lunatic, which he's not. He's kind. He's compassionate. He's considerate. And he stands up for the rights of suffering people . . . And you know, if Jack came here, they'd arrest him immediately if he helped Judith Curren here, instead of Michigan.

. . . They'll make up anything, just like they did about Judith Curren. Of course, you know, all of a sudden, after six years, Kevorkian all of a sudden plotted with a husband to kill a wife [as opponents charged]. Instead of all the work that he's done, he suddenly became a killer. Do you believe that? I mean, I read these things out here in Boston-it's just incredible. But of course, the Puritans landed here and infected you guys first. So, it's incredible. As they get farther west, you know, their cancerous ideas were somewhat modified as they inbred, but . . . why do you think the British kept them out? I mean, the Puritans, they're lunatics, total lunatics . . .

But [Kevorkian's opponents] go, "Dr. Faw, if you ask a doctor to help you, we've got to put that doctor in jail, because that's a threat to us all. You're not allowed to do what you want to do with your life when you're suffering." You understand? . . . [B]ut, if these doctors kill you the old-fashioned way, good old-fashioned negligence, drunk on the operating table . . . slaughter you, cut off your leg, you know, just absolutely ruin your life, cripple you, you can't sue them. What's that about? They've made it so you can't sue them. Did you know that? They call it "reform." They call it "legal reform." Legal reform means if the doctors kill you involuntarily through good old-fashioned malpractice, or they slaughter you, they cripple you, they ruin your life, you . . . can't sue them. You can't go out and shoot them, and you can't sue them. But, if you beg them for relief and they give it to you, those doctors go to jail. Now, who do you think we're kidding? . . .

You guys had Margaret Sanger at [the Ford Hall] forum. That's what encouraged me to come. You know why? Margaret Sanger did the ungodly thing of wanting to disseminate birth control information in the early part of this century, and they put her in jail for it. They made it illegal, and the city of Boston didn't even want her to come into this forum and speak, and apparently, she had to have her mouth taped and Arthur Schlesinger Sr. came and did her speech for her. That's in 1929. And she did the ungodly sin of disseminating birth control information and family planning. Do you understand? Do you think the medical profession came to her aid? Ha! Do you think they sent her to jail? You bet they did . . .

[How] I got involved in the Kevorkian case . . . I want to tell you. [In] To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus . . . had the duty of defending Tom, who was wrongfully charged with that heinous crime, a rape and a murder, in that ignominious southern town. And of course, Tom was wrongfully charged, and of course, convicted . . . and taken away, ultimately to be shot down and killed as he allegedly tried to escape . . . [A]ll of the African Americans, the blacks, had been assigned or relegated to the balcony of that courtroom, and Atticus walked out of the courtroom alone, and as he walked out, everybody in the balcony stood up. And his little daughter, Missy Jean, was up there too, and she was sitting. Somebody leaned forward, and said, "Missy Jean, Missy Jean, stand up. You're father's passing." I'm telling you. Kevorkian's passing among us, and all I'm doing is standing up for him.

I'm standing up for what I think, what I've seen. I was not committed to this issue. I was just a trial attorney. A little Armenian doctor who's got balls the size of, you know, bowling balls, came in to see me. And I had no real grasp of the issue other than the fact that it sounded interesting. And as I've become involved in the issue, I see it's just absolutely right, that there is no reason why. No government could tell you when to go to the bathroom. And could you say that the function of dying, the function of being born and dying, is any different? I mean, it's a function of life, and some of us don't go into that good night so gently. Do you understand? Some of us aren't going to be carried into that good night so gently.

. . . [T]he medical profession . . . they'll lie to you and they say they can control all pain-that's BS. You tell that to Dr. Faw right now. If they tell you they can control all pain without putting you in some kind of twilight zone where you're miserating [sic] in there, too, they're lying to you. Yeah, they can control a lot of pain, but . . . you're not yourself. Can you imagine if an airline pilot said, "Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm on my morphine sulfate 'cause I've got metastatic cancer, and enjoy the ride." You'd say, "Ah! I'm outta here!" You know? 'Cause he's not in his right mind, and they tell you that . . . oh, yeah, they can control the pain because they put you in the twilight zone. It's just incredible . . .

But . . . here's the biggest problem. Listen. Bottom line, you know, I've been implicit, but let me be explicit. I've been at the center of the maelstrom with Kevorkian for the last six years. The problem is religion, pure and simple, good old-fashioned religion. There is in our culture-even though we're supposedly a secular country with a division of separation of church and state-you know very, very well, these lunatic Republicans telling you, you know, God. Why do you think you got Jerry Falwell and the Christian Coalition-you think they're there not trying to inveigle good old-fashioned religion into your life? . . . [N]obody talks about Buddhists or Hindus or anything. And it'd be perfectly acceptable if we were one nation under a Hindu god, you understand? But, oh, no, we're not. So, it's religion that is the opponent of this. There are people who believe that because God speaks to them through the fillings of their teeth . . . that this is a sin.

This isn't about suicide. This isn't the right to commit suicide. This isn't the right to die. I'd give that right away in a second, because I didn't think I had a right. I thought it's just going to happen, and I keep running away from it. This is about the right not to suffer. This is about a human being's right not to suffer and to make a decision for ourselves. And it's not just [about being] depressed. Which human being wouldn't be depressed if you were suffering, if you had some hideous disease that was eating away at your bones and you were screaming in pain? If you weren't depressed, you'd be psychotic. And they always say, "Oh, these people are depressed." You're supposed to be depressed! You're supposed to be depressed! You'd be absolutely psychotic if you weren't. The problem is, you've got to know what you're doing, and if you know what you're doing, you say, "Enough is enough. I'm not going to suffer anymore."

. . . The inveigling of religion in medicine is what really is the problem. You understand? The witch doctor and the medicine man were always the same person, historically, until very recently. They've had a minor separation, but [now] there's a bunch of priests who are medical ethicists, and so they conjure up the most absolutely ridiculous things in the whole world . . . [F]irst of all, they do the slippery slope argument. I love that slippery slope argument. If you allow doctors like Kevorkian to help patients, suddenly doctors will become killers. Well, of course we know that medical schools screen to make sure that they admit killers into medical school. You understand that. There's some kind of implicit test where you're filling out your forms and they're getting as many killers as possible, you understand? So . . . the slippery slope is doctors will be killers. They won't be healers. Ah! Ha! . . .

Any of you guys got a driver's license? You got a driver's license? You know what the slippery slope of allowing you to drive is, don't you? That fifty thousand of us will be slaughtered on the highway every single year if we allow you to drive. That's a pretty damn slippery slope, don't you think? Now, how can you possibly be allowed to drive? Fifty thousand Americans. Twenty-five thousand of them will be drunk. How can you be allowed to drive with that kind of slippery slope around? And you know the slippery slope of allowing you to bear arms, don't you? Twenty thousand of us will be murdered. Since Kevorkian started, over a hundred thousand of us have been slaughtered, and that slippery slope ain't changing, man, and those religious lunatics don't care if you own a bazooka, but they care if a doctor helps a poor suffering person.

And then . . . these medical ethicists . . . most of whom aren't doctors . . . they go, "Well, we'll divine this." And then they come up with this crazy thing . . . the Living Will. Oh, that's just wonderful. The Living Will. They go, "If you're dying, and you write in advance, 'When I'm dying and I'm in a coma or I'm unable to care for myself, you can disconnect the feeding tube or you can disconnect the ventilator and starve me or suffocate me, OK?'-now, you can do that. That's acceptable." These medical Merlins said, "That will be passive euthanasia." But, if you're not so unfortunate as to be put into a coma or attached to a feeding tube or a breathing mechanism, but you have a cancer that is eating away at you and you're screaming until your last dying breath, and you're begging a doctor to help you, and you're not asking a doctor to starve you or suffocate you but to give you the pills-"Oh, no! We'll put you in jail if you do that!" . . .

The battle that is being fought is a battle for each and every one of you here to make a decision, when your time has come, about your lives and your suffering, without the intervention of me or somebody who never met you, or government. It's as simple as that. And if you aren't capable or qualified or invested with enough independence and sense as a free human being to make that decision, then you don't deserve the freedom that you have. You simply don't deserve it. I've fought goddamn hard over these last six years to keep Jack Kevorkian from rotting away in prison for the rest of his life, and Jack Kevorkian has been fighting for every one of you, and you didn't know it. You didn't know it. And it's time you stand up and you say, "Yes. Judith Curren has a right. Dr. Faw has a right. Janet Adkins has a right. Dr. Khalili has a right. Sherry Miller has a right." All of us have that right, or we're not free, or we're really not in possession of our own bodies, and somebody else owns them.

Geoffrey Fieger is a partner in the Southfield, Michigan, law firm Fieger, Fieger & Schwartz. He has represented Jack Kevorkian pro bono since 1990.

 

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