DATE=May 8, 2002

TYPE=Dateline

NUMBER=7-36274

TITLE=Physician-Assisted Suicide

BYLINE=Ania Zalewski

TELEPHONE=619-1287

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Neal Lavon

CONTENT=

HOST: For the past several years, voters in numerous American states have been choosing whether people should be able to take their own lives with the help of a doctor. This so-called "physician-assisted suicide" has emerged as a major cultural and scientific battle in the United States. With more in this Dateline report, here's Neal Lavon.

NL: In a scene from his latest comic film, Hollywood Ending, director Woody Allen jokingly says he wants to commit suicide. So he invokes a name most Americans associate with death.

TAPE: CUT#1, WOODY ALLEN TRAILER, :47

"(SNEAK MUSIC,:06) Call Dr. Kevorkian! (FADE MUSIC UNDER AND OUT)

NL: The name of Dr. Jack Kevorkian has become almost synonymous with physician-assisted suicide. The Michigan physician, who began his career with a specialty in pathology, became nationally-known as a proponent and participant in assisted suicides. After a controversial career spent in and out of courts, Dr. Kevorkian was convicted of second degree murder in 1999, and is currently in prison. His life and work brought the issue of physician-assisted suicide, or the right to die, into the national and international spotlight. On April 1, euthanasia became legal in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is the first country in the world to permit mercy killing for terminally ill people, desperate to die. Belgium, France, Britain and Australia are actively debating similar laws.

In the United States, court rulings have firmly established a patient's legal right to discontinue life-sustaining treatment, such as the use of a respirator or artificial nutrition. What is unresolved is whether individuals should have the right to enlist the assistance of physicians to hasten their deaths.

Doctor Howard Brody is the Director of Michigan State University's Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences, a research organization specializing in medical ethics issues.

TAPE: CUT#2, BRODY, :30

"At the present time in the U.S. we have different laws in different states. And this is considered a matter for each state to determine on each own and there is one state in the Unites States, to my knowledge, that permits assisted suicide. And the state of Oregon has been doing it for several years now and they've been formally issuing a report every year summarizing the experience that they had in their state with the physician assisted suicide."

NL: Only recently, the right-to-die movement claimed a victory in Oregon when Federal District Judge Robert Jones ruled against Attorney General John Ashcroft in a challenge to the state's so-called Death With Dignity statute. The judge rejected his assertion that federal jurisdiction of drugs and controlled substances can override a state's control of medical practiceswhich may include using drugs in physician-assisted suicides under the Death With Dignity edict.

But Doctor Gregory Hamilton, who heads a group called Physicians For Compassionate Care, supports General Ashcroft's argument that Oregon's so-called Death With Dignity Law is at odds with the federal Drug Control Statute.

TAPE: CUT#3, HAMILTON, :05

"Oregon is not free to exempt itself from federal law, it just can't do it."

NL: Nevertheless, according to a recent Harris Poll, two-thirds of Americans disagree with the Supreme Court 1997 ruling which held that the U.S. Constitution does not include a right to physician-assisted suicide. Currently, 60 percent of Americans support physician-assisted suicide. In 1947, that figure was only 37 percent. But as Professor Howard Brody points out, responses to surveys and voting at the ballot box may produce different results.

TAPE: CUT#4, BRODY,:17

"So even though there's a public opinion statement from the American public saying they are in favor, that does not translate into action. They answer a survey one way, but then when they actually have to take some action, like going out to vote, they don't necessarily follow through."

NL: Professor Brody points out that although the idea of assisted suicide seems attractive in theory, people are not so quick to enact it into law. Rita Marker is the Executive Director for the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force.

TAPE: CUT#5, MARKER, :39

"In case after case, in state after state, with the mere exception of Oregon, over the last 15 years there have been attempts over and over and over to legalize assisted suicide. And at first in each situation, people thought well, of course, people favor it, it is going to become legal. And as people became more aware of what it really meant, they said, 'You know what, I might like the idea, I see how very, very dangerous this would be for myself, for people that I love or even for someone that I didn't even know if we were to transform the crime of an assisted suicide into medical treatment.' "

NL: Doctor Gregory Hamilton agrees that bringing Oregon's approach to the rest of the United States would be, as he put it, dangerous.

TAPE: CUT#6, HAMILTON, :19

"It makes people vulnerable to be given overdoses when they are depressed, it brings in financial considerations, it causes problems, because people can be pressured by their families … I mean these are all very important issues that need to be sorted out."

NL: But Professor Howard Brody counters that the strongest proponents of physician-assisted suicide are not those who approach the issue from a policy perspective, but those who were personally and emotionally involved.

TAPE: CUT#7, BRODY, :14

"The people that I have seen that are most activist on this issue are precisely those people who were faced with that problem with their own family. And many of them have become more radical because of the fact that this has been a very personal thing for them."

NL: The Hemlock Society is one many organizations associated with the right-to-die movement. The society was established, President Faye Girsh says, because of one man's struggle to end the life of his suffering wife.

TAPE: CUT#8, GIRSH, 1:05

"It was started in 1980 by Derek Humphry who was a British journalist. His young wife developed breast cancer, which after many years of treatment, developed into bone cancer. And at some point, when she could barely turn over in bed without breaking a bone, she asked him if he would help her die when her suffering became unbearable. He said yes and he was able to find a doctor who gave him medication. And in a couple of months, she did found it unbearable, and said 'this is the day'. And they reminisced about their life together and then he mixed the medication in a cup of coffee, she drank it, went to sleep and never woke up. And two crimes were committed then. He committed a crime of assisting a suicide and so did the doctor. But because the local police knew how sick she was, and that her death was imminent, there was no prosecution, it appeared to be a natural death."

NL: I'll be back with more on assisted suicide's most vocal advocate after this break. You're listening to Dateline heard 44 minutes past most odd U-T-C hours on VOA News Now. I'm Neal Lavon.

Doctor Jack Kevorkian is probably the best known advocate of physician-assisted suicide, not only in the United States but around the world. Right now he is serving a 10 to 25-year prison sentence for assisting in the death of Thomas Youk [YOWK]. Mr. Youk had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or known more colloquially in the United States as Lou Gehrig's disease, named for the famous American baseball player who died from it in the 1930s. A videotape of Mr. Youk getting a lethal dose of poison from Dr. Kevorkian aired on national television. During his trial, Dr. Kevorkian had argued that it was a "mercy killing" as described in this produced audio segment which includes his closing argument.

TAPE: CUT#9, FREE KEVORKIAN TAPE EXCERPT, :42

"(MUSIC) It causes anguish, to Melody and parents, it causes anguish and what causes a special anguish is that a prosecutor says that Thomas Youk is a chief complainant against me, can you imagine this (…) There are only two alternatives - one leads to some progress in human society, a little protection of rights - when we need them the most. (MUSIC)"

NL: Despite his self-defense, Doctor Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree murder. Professor Howard Brody at that time was a chairman of the State of Michigan's Commission on Death and Dying, a body formed in response to the Jack Kevorkian situation.

TAPE: CUT#10, BRODY, :32

"Doctor Kevorkian is from my native state of Michigan. So of course here in Michigan we paid very close attention to what happened to him. In several cases where he was brought to trial, where he clearly was assisting a suicide - he was not found guilty; the case that led him to be in prison, was a case of homicide, it was not assisted suicide."

NL: But even in Oregon, analysts say that since the law took effect, there have been no abuses, nor have those wishing to kill themselves rushed to the state, as critics warned might happen. A study published in 2000 by the American Medical Association, which opposes doctor-assisted suicide, found that, "among patients who were neither depressed nor hopeless, none had high desire for hastened death."

NL: Conservative political groups in the United States in general equate the issue to abortion, calling it the taking of human life, something they vigorously oppose. Professor Brody says the association is a natural one.

TAPE: CUT#12, BRODY, :44

"When I first became involved in talking about assisted suicide my own feeling was that it would have to go in two very different direction from the debate over abortion. But the actual social dynamics of the debate has in fact tended to become another replica of the abortion debate. And I would only explain it, based on the idea that those persons who believe that religion is a primary source of moral teaching, and that the way we should decide the public issues of morality is primarily by appeal to religion and to the Bible, that group of people seems to feel very, very strongly against assisted suicide, just as they feel against abortion."

NL: But to others, assisted suicide is a matter of personal choice. Richard Holmes, a patient in the Oregon case against Attorney General Ashcroft, told reporters, "I'd love to stay alive. But I've also had enough medical diagnosis to know this, that my days are numbered." Near the end of a long battle with liver cancer, he wants to be able to choose that number.

TAPE: CUT#13, HOLMES, :06

"I've lived my life the way I want to. I should be able to choose the way to end it."

NL: No doubt the opposing groups will continue their debate on assisted suicide, both on the state and national levels. A consensus acceptable to both sides is not in sight and may never be in sight. But with the graying of the U-S population predicted for the next several decades, decisions will need to be taken soon on the many issues facing those in the September of their years.

This edition of Dateline was written by Ania Zalewski. I'm Neal Lavon.

MUSIC: SEPTEMBER SONG, WILLIE NELSON, FADE OUT IF NEEDED AT 10:23, TO 12:32.