OP/ED: Why I Am In Favor of Physician-Assisted Suicide

It's something I try not to think about, but the recent release of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, aka "Dr. Death" just gets my blood boiling all over again. I am wholeheartedly for physician assisted suicide. Let me tell you why.

My father-in-law was what some people would call a hero and what others, at least back in the 1960's, called a baby-killer. To me, he was a good man who cared about his country and his family. He was career military (Army), served three tours of duty in Vietnam, was also a Korean War veteran, and when he wasn't in combat, he was a pretty effective drill sergeant, according to his son, my husband. He taught his children about values, patriotism, work ethic, honor, duty, responsibility, honesty, and how to have a pretty successful marriage. About four years ago, my father-in-law contracted blood cancer, most likely as a result of three major exposures to Agent Orange -- one for each tour of duty in Vietnam. The best I can say about his battle with the disease is that it was quick. Roughly three weeks after diagnosis, he died. And here is the first point of my argument. Despite a Living Will indicating that he did not wish to be hooked up to a respirator or other life-support machines, he was, about three days before he died. The family figured out pretty quick that he wanted off the machines when he wrote a note to the doctor saying he wanted to die, and then proceeded to chew through the respirator tube in an effort to get rid of it. So they took him off the machines. But, according to the law as it now stands, taking him off the machines meant taking him off the morphine, because without the respirator breathing for him, the morphine would kill him. I know this because I was in the ICU room when the doctor told him that. If he wanted morphine, if he wanted to be free from pain, he would have to go back on the live-extending machines that he emphatically did not want. So this combat veteran, good man, and hero took about 24 hours to die. In pain. About a year ago, my dog Herman began to manifest a genetic disorder that we didn't even know he had. Herman was just a dog. He never saved anyone's life, he wasn't any kind of service dog, he never pulled children out of a burning building, he was just a spoiled rotten beagle/Jack Russell mix with a quirky personality and a way of worming himself into people's hearts. He wasn't even all that bright. About two and a half weeks after diagnosis, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to discover that Herman (who slept in the bedroom) was dying. We never knew whether he had a stroke or a heart attack, but it didn't matter. We knew he was in pain and he was dying. I managed to stop sobbing long enough call the veterinarian's hotline, and she agreed to meet me at the office before it opened -- at 7:30. By 7:40 Herman, with a little help from some euthanizing drugs, had died peacefully and pain-free in my arms. He suffered for roughly three hours. My father-in-law suffered for a whole day. For both of them, the end was near, and everyone knew it. Yet only one of them was allowed to die without pain. My dog, a rescued mutt that flunked obedience school the first time out, had legal rights in this situation that my father-in-law, a human being, did not. This is so wrong. And I still cannot believe that a man went to prison for trying to right this wrong. And I am so, so angry.