Kevorkian's TV killing was no act of mercy

By Kathleen Parker
Commentary

Published in The Orlando Sentinel, Nov 29 1998

'If you build it, they will come," the ghosts of baseball past told Kevin Costner in the movie Field of Dreams. So, of course, he built a baseball diamond in the middle of a cornfield. And, sure enough, they came.

"If you kill a man on video, they will watch," the future ghosts of dying men told Dr. Jack Kevorkian. So, of course, he killed a man on tape, and, sure enough, millions of Americans watched it on television's 60 Minutes a week ago.

And that, as they say, is show biz.

Now, we're told, we're supposed to engage in lively debate and resolve once and for all this pesky business of the Meaning of Life. Inspiring such debate, we're told, was the motivation behind the airing of this family-hour snuff film.

Personally, I haven't been able to catch my breath since hearing about Thomas Youk's televised killing, much less chat about it. At long last, we have a definition for obscenity.

For those of you who were kidnapped by aliens last weekend -- and I don't doubt for a moment that you were -- Dr. "Death" Kevorkian finally pulled the plug on a terminally ill man. He didn't "assist a suicide" by providing the mechanism for someone to kill himself, as he has done in the past. This time he personally administered the fatal dose -- resulting in his being charged with murder -- and videotaped the event.

Why? Because, he said, he wanted to push the envelope. He wanted to be charged with murder to advance the ultimate '90s debate: quality vs. quantity. Must we be forced to live, after all, when our every breath is wracked with pain and terror? Why not a nice, peaceful sleep?

Fine with me. I've witnessed death, though in the privacy of family, where it belongs, and it's no moonlight stroll. When my life becomes unbearable, I'll check out if it suits me, though I won't insist you watch. Promise. In fact, I'm not opposed to Kevorkian's helping people end their lives. Anyone who has ever spent two weeks in an intensive-care unit, watching medical technicians torture a loved one, can admit to wishing for a merciful dose of killing morphine.

Even so, that doesn't mean I have to witness another's death while sauteing asparagus. Airing the killing of a person on television is as clear a display of indecency as I can imagine, an invasion of everyone's privacy -- the dying man's, ours, our children's.

It isn't enough to say we could change the channel. It is too much to have to entertain the option.

As voyeurism has replaced experience, and talking heads have supplanted thought, we've lost sense and sensibility. The debate of the moment shouldn't be whether Kevorkian's killing a compliant man constitutes murder. Under current law, it clearly does. If you doubt it, replace the image of Kevorkian inserting a syringe into Youk's vein with his sticking a gun barrel into Youk's mouth.

As outrageous as Kevorkian's deed, however, is our national passivity in the face of it. We should be rioting in the streets that 60 Minutes or any other "news" program would air the act of one person purposely and painstakingly taking the life of another.

But this is controversial, ergo it's "news," broadcasters intone. Don Hewitt, executive producer of 60 Minutes, defended the broadcast in a letter to The New York Times:

"With the issue of euthanasia a matter of public discourse now as never before, we feel strongly that the story -- exactly as we told it -- was a fit and proper one for us, or anyone, to tell." He was deeply offended by criticism that "Death by Doctor" was carefully timed to run during ratings sweeps week.

"In our 30 years on the air we have never done anything to pander to a sweeps week," said Hewitt.

I don't care what week it is. That's not the point. Showing a man being killed is indefensibly wrong -- any day, any year, any millennium. The fact that we can't see that point scares me far more than the prospect of legalized euthanasia.

Abortion is also controversial, but I don't need to watch a fetus being vacuumed from its mother's womb in order to form an opinion. Capital punishment is a matter of public discourse, but I'm deeply grateful I don't have to watch executions. I'm aware that illicit sex acts took place in the White House, but I'm euphoric that Linda Tripp didn't know how to wire a hidden video camera.

Kevorkian's exhibitionist act may indeed advance the debate on euthanasia. But more significantly -- and more fearsome than the most insidious terminal disease -- it will advance society's desensitization toward killing. In which case, we can forget the meaning of life.

Kathleen Parker's column also appears Wednesday in the Sentinel's Living section. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected]

[Posted 11/27/1998 7:29 PM EST]