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Killing with Mercy Kevorkian Had it Right?

For those who who still think that the killing of Terri Schiavo was not part of a greater movement toward doctor assisted suicide and active euthanasia the St. Petersburg Times has an article for you. In the course of one page, ROBYN E. BLUMNER, a "perspective columnist", calls lethal injection a "tender mercy" and asserts that "Kevorkian had it right". Hard to believe? Here are the quotes:

"Even so, a question that kept coming up - whispered mostly - was why her death couldn't have been mercifully hastened. Why not provide her with a little too much morphine in the way many doctors do but won't admit to, or inject her with the lethal cocktail that we use to peacefully end the lives of dying pets? Those questions were asked even as we knew that the law stood in the way of such tender mercies, even for people who, unlike Schiavo, retain some awareness at the end of their lives."

"To me, there is only one legitimate concern in the right-to-die debate, and that is the possibility that severely disabled patients might feel societal pressure to end their lives prematurely."

"But Kevorkian had it right. Future generations will look upon his imprisonment the way we now view the Inquisition's indictment of Galileo or Margaret Sanger's troubles under the Comstock laws - a backward authority using its power to stall advancement."

The first paragraph has remarkable parallels to Proverbs 12:10. She claims that killing through lethal injection is a “tender mercy” because its something that would be done to a pet. The passage states, “A righteous [man] regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked [are] cruel.”

Her entire argument hinges on the belief that the individual is sovereign over his or her life, having the moral right to end it at will. This is contradicted by what she believes is the only legitimate concern: those with a handicap might end their life due to societal pressure. But if they want to end their life isn’t that the right thing to do?

And, putting Dr. Kevorkian and Margaret Sanger on par with Galileo is one of the most absurd statements I have read in a long time. If Kevorkian and Sanger are in the same class as a group of famous historical figures, they join the ranks of Josef Mengele, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

Posted by tim at April 19, 2005 12:38 AM

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