If It Was Wrong for Doctor Kevorkian To Euthanize Humans, Is It Right That We Euthanize Our Animals?

His Background

Doctor Jack Kevorkian had a cause that once swept this nation. That cause has not completely been forgotten since he passed away in 2011. For those that don’t know who he was, he was a physician that gained international attention for assisting in the suicides of over 100 patients. Most of whom were terminally ill. He was seen by many as a doctor who helped terminally ill people end their lives. He argued for the rights of those patients and how they choose to die. He challenged social taboos about disease and dying all while defying prosecutors and courts.

I recall growing up and seeing the publicized attention he received. Attention, that he seemed to actively seek. His nickname Dr. Death, and the suicide machine he created, received a lot of attention and a lot of jokes from late-night television comedians.

He had a doctrine to achieve two goals: ensuring the patient’s comfort and protecting himself against criminal conviction.

The American Medical Association thought he posed a great threat to the public. While many people felt very passionate about his pursuit, other people felt the opposite. They felt that he should first give people the real options to live before seeking out the options to die.¹

Dr. Kevorkian videotaped interviews with the patient, their families and their friends. He even videotaped the assisted suicide.¹

His first assisted suicide was on June 4, 1990. Her name was Janet Adkins. She was a teacher from Oregon who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Her life ended on a bed inside of Dr. Kevorkian’s 1968 Volkswagen van.¹

Immediately afterward, Dr. Kevorkian called the police. They arrested him and briefly detained him. The next day Janet Adkins’ husband and two of his sons held a news conference in Portland and read the suicide note Janet prepared. Also that day, Dr. Kevorkian alerted the nation to his campaign in an interview with The New York Times. “My ultimate aim is to make euthanasia a positive experience,” he said. “I’m trying to knock the medical profession into accepting its responsibilities, and those responsibilities include assisting their patients with death.”¹

By his account, he assisted in approximately over 130 assisted suicides over the next eight years.¹

For many years jurists, prosecutors, the State Legislature, the Michigan health authorities and the governor tried to stop him. In 1991 a state judge issued a permanent injunction barring him from using his suicide machine. That same year, the state suspended his license to practice medicine. In 1993, Michigan approved at statute outlawing assisted suicide. In 1994 the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that assisting in a suicide, while not specifically prohibited by statute, was a common-law felony and that there was no protected right to suicide assistance under the state Constitution.¹

No legal restrictions stopped Dr. Kevorkian from performing his assisted suicides.

Between May of 1994 to June of 1997, Dr. Kevorkian went to trial four times in the death of six of his patients. Three of those trials ended in acquittals and the fourth was declared a mistrial.¹

Imprisoned But Creating Change

But on March 26, 1999 after a trial that lasted less than two days, a Michigan jury found him guilty of second-degree murder. Six months before this trial, Dr. Kevorkian videotaped himself injecting Thomas Youk, a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease), with lethal drugs that caused Thomas Youk’s death on September 17, 1998. He allowed 60 Minutes to air the videotape. The videotape disclosed that he was not just assisting the patient but he provided the lethal injection.¹

That April, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison with possibility of parole. His request for parole and request to bring the case to the U.S Supreme Court were denied.¹

On June 1, 2007, after serving over 8 years he was released from prison on good behavior. He also promised not to assist in any more suicides.¹

Dr. Kevorkian’s efforts paved the way for Hospice Care. It allowed patients to be as comfortable as possible in their final days. It also helped to change laws in states such as Oregon and in several other countries that now allow for euthanasia of it’s people.

Was it Right?

While he had many supporters he also had many people opposed to his efforts. Many family members of those he aided with suicide made sure he was imprisoned. He was hated as much as he was revered. People often saw what he was doing and his supporters as a plague.

And at what point was he defying God? Doesn’t the church teach people to trust in God’s plan? Aren’t you supposed to die when God is ready for you so he can welcome you into his kingdom?

Euthanasia of Animals

Where euthanasia of humans has generally been prohibited, euthanasia of animals has been performed for centuries. In ancient Egypt it was not uncommon when someone died, if the pet was still alive, they would euthanize the pet so that the pet could be reunited with its owner and continue to be the deceased’s companion in the afterlife.²

State laws differ with regards to euthanizing animals. Some states have enacted detailed laws specifying the means of euthanizing animals and the circumstances involved. Other states do not regulate euthanasia or have not passed any law with regards to the means or circumstances surrounding euthanasia of animals.²

My Experience

In 2020 I had to make the decision to euthanize my 17 year old dog. Like many other pet owners, it was something I thought long and hard about. It was a tough decision for me to make.

Many people offer well meant, but unwanted advice. I heard that when the time comes you will know. To be honest I never knew. I always had my doubts and excuses that he wasn’t that bad off. He never gave me a sign that today was the day. He got older, and as he got older, his body was failing him. He had arthritis, a bone spur, and cancer for two and a half years. He became partially deaf and almost completely blind. He still had spirit though, and with that spirit I always believed he had a will to live. At the vet’s office we always remarked that the will was strong within him. And it surely was. It was the body that was failing him, but not the soul.

All that being said I thought that one day God would take mercy on him and take him up to heaven when his time came. But day after day, and month after month, it never came for him. In 2018 I was given about a week’s worth of pain pills for him and told that is all I would need and he would soon be gone. Aside from the pain pills nearly killing him, and having to stop them, he continued on for two and half years. He defied the odds. He was tough and always refused to cry out or whimper in pain. In those two and half years I only ever heard him cry out a couple of times. And he would stop the minute he became aware that I heard him.

The moment I decided life wasn’t joyful for him anymore, and I needed to do what was best, I wished he could talk and tell me what kind of pain or misery he was in. I will never be certain if what I did was what he really wanted. I will never know if I should have waited and if God would have taken him when it was the right time.

Do I feel like I made the hardest and yet best decision I could have made for him? Yes. Do I also feel like he was asking why I did such a thing to him? Yes. But in the end, I hope that when I go up to heaven I am able to be greeted by him running toward me and thanking me for the life I had given him and for having the strength to be with him when it was time to allow his life to end.

My Closing Thoughts

I wonder if Dr. Kevorkian ever laid awake in bed at night wondering if he was doing the right thing for his patients? Was he ever disturbed by the life he was taking away and wonder if there was a way to prolong it instead. Did he ever feel he was going against God’s will?

Did he believe when his time came that all those people would greet him in heaven and thank him for what he did for them?

¹ Keith Schneider; June 3, 2011; Dr. Jack Kevorkian Dies at 83; A Doctor Who Helped End Lives; The New York Times; https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/us/04kevorkian.html

² Alexandra Kleinfeldt; 2017; Brief Summary of Animal Euthanasia; https://www.animallaw.info/article/brief-summary-animal-euthanasia