Dr. Death's mouthpiece mouths off
Smith, Wesley JWe haven't heard lately about Jack "Dr. Death" Kevorkian helping to kill anyone. As of this writing, it has been several months, longer than he usually goes between "terminations." The unemployed and medically unlicensed pathologist, who has helped end the lives of over 100 people since 1990, has not had a change of heart: he continues to proclaim that assisted suicide is right and proper. Nor has he been cowed into submission by Michigan's newly-passed statute prohibiting assisted suicide and punishing it as a felony-he has arrogantly defied previous bans and has promised to disobey this new one.
Why, then, would Kevorkian, whose ghoulish "crusade" was gaining speed as recently as last spring, suddenly stop alive in his tracks? The most likely answer is that his consigliere and minister of propaganda, Geoffrey Fieger, asked him to cease and desist while he runs for governor of Michigan. It's not that Fieger's bid for public office has led to a sudden attack of conscience. On the contrary, he still represents Kevorkian, as he has since 1991. In fact, during the last eight years, Fieger has triumphed over traditional morality and the rule of law, winning acquittals for his client in three jury trials. (In a fourth, he unethically maneuvered a mistrial by using his opening statement to falsely accuse a prosecutor of covering up a murder, so as to poison the jury against the prosecution.)
Fieger has done well for Kevorkian, but he has done even better for himself. Once a successful but relatively obscure Michigan medical malpractice lawyer, he is now-thanks to Dr. Death-one of the most famous attorneys in the United States. He has been a guest on countless television and radio talk shows-including 60 Minutes, Larry King Live, and ABC's Nightlineand has been interviewed in endless newspaper and news magazine stories. He has also grown extremely rich. Already well-off when Kevorkian first walked through his office door, Feiger has become a multi-millionaire thanks to the increased number of malpractice cases his firm garnered because of his notoriety. (As one lawyer put it, representing Kevorkian has brought so much business that Fieger can "cherry pick" the best malpractice cases in the Midwest.)
That brings us back to Fieger's run for Michigan's highest political office. Successful electioneering requires at least two political assets-name recognition and money. Fieger's representation of Kevorkian brought him plenty of both. In April, Fieger joined a weak field of Democrat nominees and, using his bombastic persona and "populist" rhetoric, parlayed these political assets (plus his own money), into a 41% plurality victory in the August primary.
Paradoxically, Fieger's campaign was undoubtedly assisted by both his identification with Kevorkian and his client's sudden suspension of his lethal activities. Because Fieger was well known, he gained an immediate leg up on his lesser-known adversaries. However, Fieger and Kevorkian are intensely controversial, and thus candidate Fieger also had high "negative" ratings (which he would have to reduce to have any chance to win in November against incumbent Governor John Engler). That required Kevorkian to fade into the background. Indeed, once in the race, Fieger publicly distanced himself from his notorious client, going so far as to disingenuously proclaim his "personal opposition" to assisted suicide!
Kevorkian played his part: his killings were reaching a crescendo in the early months of 1998: two victims in January; three in February; four in March; five in April. Then, Fieger announced he would run for governor. Kevorkian immediately began to reduce his death output. There were only two victims in May. His last known assisted killing occurred on June 7, a case in which he made headlines for announcing that he had been part of a "team" that removed the victim's kidneys for potential transplant. At the news conference announcing the deed, Fieger was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Kevorkian was represented by Fieger's law partner, Michael Schwartz. Little has been heard or seen of Kevorkian since.
That Kevorkian-who is notorious for doing what he wants to do, when he wants to do it-would stop "assisting" suicides when his friend Fieger needed him out of the news speaks volumes about their relationship. The two are much more than attorney and client. They are joined at the hip. Without Fieger, Kevorkian knows he would probably have been jailed years ago. Without Kevorkian, Fieger knows he would still be a prosperous but unknown malpractice lawyer. Together, they make a formidable team which has subverted the rule of law in Michigan and turned the morality of the country on its ear.
Fieger's distancing himself from Kevorkian had an unlikely ally in Governor Engler, whose campaign against Fieger has been focused primarily on the lawyer's harsh rhetoric and his personal life. Engler has criticized Fieger for his many remarks disparaging religious belief, for example, calling Jesus Christ "some goof ball who got nailed to a cross" (he's referred to Pope John John Paul II as "some [expletive deleted] who's wearing a hat three feet tall"). He has also objected to Fieger's many ad hominem attacks, such as when he said that the governor was "at a minimum, the result of miscegenation between human beings and barnyard animals." And Engler ran a TV spot complaining about Fieger's drunk driving conviction (he has also publicized his wife's since-withdrawn accusation in a canceled divorce case that she was physically abused).
However, Engler has made little mention of the best reason that Fieger is absolutely unqualified to be governor of anywhere: his intimate involvement with Kevorkian in a blatantly-illegal campaign that has resulted in the assisted killing of more than 100 people. Put bluntly, Fieger is equally responsible with Kevorkian for the terrible toll-yet Engler seems afraid to talk about it! Engler's decision, which is probably based on polling and focus groups, may be good politics. But it is timid leadership and, unfortunately, it is nothing new. Engler has consistently failed to provide rigorous and sustained intellectual opposition to Kevorkianism, which is part of the reason Kevorkian has prevailed. The energetic Fieger filled the resulting leadership vacuum as Kevorkian's mouthpiece and redefined the issue successfully as a matter of not permitting the state to "force" people to suffer, rather than of the laws protecting vulnerable human lives.
The Human Cost of Kevorkianism
With so many victims, it has become disturbingly easy for some to lose sight of the ultimate cost that lies at the tragic core of the Kevorkian/Fieger juggernaut. To date, we count at least 109 of them (there may be more). Here are a few of their stories:
Janet Adkins, aged 54, had been diagnosed with "early Alzheimer's" when she flew to Michigan in 1990 to become Kevorkian's first victim. Few know that it was not Janet but her husband who contacted Kevorkian-it was he who took care of all the arrangements. Adkins was still vigorous at the time-she beat her son at tennis just prior to leaving for Michigan.
Marjorie Wantz, aged 58: her autopsy report showed fine physical health until the day she flipped a switch, and poison from Jack Kevorkian's suicide machine poured into her veins. Wantz was not a happy woman, it is true. She had bitter complaints about pelvic pain but had not followed through with a prescribed program of pain control. Wantz' real problem appears to have been emotional or mental. She had been hospitalized for psychiatric illness, and according to published reports had been overdosing on Halcion, a sleep aid that can cause suicidal impulse when abused. Kevorkian helped kill this woman without verifying any organic illness or injury and, presumably, without referring her for psychiatric help.
Margaret Garrish, aged 72: she turned to Kevorkian because she was in terrible pain from rheumatoid arthritis. Prior to her assisted killing, Fieger called a news conference and played a video of Garrish, whose identity was concealed, in which she begged for medical help for her pain. Fieger issued a threat that unless physicians came forward to care for her, Kevorkian would act. At least seven pain control specialists wrote Fieger, offering to treat Garrish. But Fieger never put them in touch with her and Kevorkian soon ended her life. When Fieger was later asked why he and Kevorkian denied Garrish access to the medical treatment that might have saved her life, he sneered that the doctors were nothing but publicity hounds.
Esther Cohan, aged 46: she had multiple sclerosis and was disabled but not terminally ill. Cohan's sister told reporters that her sister's body was covered with bed sores. Yet, according to Fieger, Kevorkian had been "counseling" Cohan for months before her death. At the time, Dr. Randolph Schiffer, an adviser to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, told me, "If a patient with multiple sclerosis has bed sores, it means by definition that, for whatever reason, they are receiving inadequate medical care." Apparently Kevorkian and Fieger either didn't know that or, as seems more likely, didn't care.
Patricia Cashman, aged 58: when Fieger announced Cashman's death, he declared "She suffered from metastatic breast cancer that had spread to her bones, her chest, and her brain. . . She had been on every drug known to man and woman, including morphine, and nothing helped." Wrong. Her autopsy showed only microscopic traces of cancer. There were no cancer tumors in her bones or any vital organ system.
Rebecca Badger, aged 39: she believed she had multiple sclerosis when she flew to Michigan to be "attended" by Kevorkian. She also complained about inadequate pain control and having to wait hours at public hospitals for medical treatment because she was uninsured. However, her autopsy showed she had no known organic disease. Upon hearing the news, Fieger immediately denounced the medical examiner, Dr. L. J. Dragovic, as "a liar" and declared, "I will put up a million dollars that Rebecca Badger had severe and crippling MS." Dragovic offered to permit Fieger to bring in a pathologist of his choice-along with the media-to view the physical evidence. Fieger has never taken him up on the offer.
Karen Shoffstall, aged 34: unlike Badger, Shoffstall actually had MS. She was moderately disabled, but that wasn't what caused her suicidal despair. Rather, she was terrified about future debilitation. She contacted Fieger's office for an introduction to Kevorkian, whom she found more than willing to reinforce her worst fears. She left her suicide note with Fieger, who read it at a press conference he called to announce Kevorkian's participation in Shoffstall's death. Her devastated family called for Kevorkian's trial for murder and wanted to see Fieger, at the very least, disbarred.
Judith Curren, aged 57: Curren's autopsy showed no evidence of organic disease; she was obese, addicted to pain killers, and may have had a nonterminal disease commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome. She was brought to Michigan by her husband, a psychiatrist, whom she had had arrested for spousal abuse a mere few weeks earlier. Fieger outrageously compared her condition to AIDS, and falsely claimed that the syndrome can be progressive and fatal, a notion quickly rebutted by medical experts.
Roosevelt Dawson, aged 21: Dawson was in the midst of a depression over a viral infection that left him paralyzed. Fieger represented him to obtain a court order for his release from the hospital so he could be killed by Kevorkian. Within five hours of his release, Dawson was dead, thwarting attempts by the disability-rights community and the Catholic Church to reach him for counseling to overcome depression and feelings of hopelessness.
Joseph Tushkowski, aged 45: The body of homicide victim Joseph Tushkowski underwent "a bizarre mutilation," proclaimed Dr. Dragovic, who conducted the autopsy. According to Dragovic, after lethally injecting Tushkowski, the mutilators crudely ripped out his kidneys without even bothering to remove the dead man's clothes. They simply lifted up his sweater, did their dirty work, and tied off the blood vessels with twine. Months earlier, Kevorkian and Fieger had appeared at a press conference promising to begin harvesting organs from assisted suicide victims. True to their word, Kevorkian and Fieger's law partner Schwartz offered Tushkowski's kidneys, "first come, first served." There were no takers.
That the assisted killing of these and 100 more medically vulnerable and despairing people by Kevorkian, as justified and enabled by Fieger, has barely raised the public's collective eyebrow illustrates how deeply the Deadly Duo has twisted and eroded traditional American values. Too many Americans no longer believe in suicide prevention when the despairing person is seriously ill or disabled. Rather, they assume that they too would not want to live in such circumstances. The Adkins, Wantz, Garrish, et al. tragedies are the result.
But there is more to the story than needless killings (most of the victims were not terminally ill). We are being changed as a society to our very core. A story out of Oakland County, Michigan from about a year ago illustrates how bizarre our values have become. Charles Woodworth, aged 54, allegedly became so enraged by his dog's chronic disobedience that he shot and wounded the animal. After looking into the case, Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca decided not to indict. That caused such a howl of popular protest that Gorcyca reversed himself and prosecuted the shooting as a felony. Woodworth now faces two years in jail.
This is the same Oakland County where Kevorkian lives and Fieger has his law office, and where Gorcyca won office by promising not to enforce Michigan's common law banning assisted suicide, giving Kevorkian virtual free reign. That the people of Oakland County and its prosecutor appear to care more about the attempted killing of a dog than they do about the actual assisted killings of more than 100 people by Jack Kevorkian is cause for great alarm.
This is all reminiscent of a movie about a married couple, both doctors. The wife, disabled by multiple sclerosis, perceives her life as useless and she becomes terribly worried that she is a burden. She wants to end her suffering and free her husband to make a new life for himself while he is still young. So, she begs him to kill her as an act of love. After intense soul searching and anguish, he agrees, and with tears in his eyes, lethally injects his wife as a friend plays a soulful piano concerto in the next room. There follows a dramatic courtroom scene in which the doctor is tried before a jury of his peers and exonerated. One sympathetic juror explains that euthanasia for the disabled is acceptable so long as "the patient wants it."
No, it wasn't a made-for-TV movie based on a true story. It was the infamous "I Accuse" (Ich Klage an), a propaganda film produced in Germany in 1941 to promote the idea that disabled people have "lives unworthy of life." That a Nazi movie so presciently mimics current Kevorkian headlines tells us all we need to know about the actual state of his and Fieger's moral consciences.
Geoffrey Fieger is primarily responsible for this. He has not only masked the depth of Kevorkian's evil from the public but he is also morally responsible for the death of most of Kevorkian's victims. After all, many who died at Kevorkian's hands contacted him through Fieger's office. Indeed, in the Winter 1998 Timelines, the Hemlock Society newsletter, Fieger's law office fax telephone number is published and readers are advised that "Dr. Kevorkian can be reached through his attorney by fax." Moreover, many of Kevorkian's victims have left suicide notes advising police to contact their attorney, Geoffrey Fieger. Thus Kevorkian's modus operandi evidently works like this: a would-be victim contacts Geoffrey Fieger's law firm, which passes the information on to their "client," Jack Kevorkian. After the killing, Fieger or his partner Schwartz calls a press conference to announce it and give it their mendacious spin. Then, to thwart any police investigation, the entire act is shrouded behind a claim of attorney/client privilege.
In a better world, Fieger would long ago have been investigated by the Michigan Bar Association and the police for joining Kevorkian in criminal conduct, instead of merely representing him after the fact. He should have been disbarred and prosecuted. Instead, he won the Democrat nomination for governor!
As I write, the polls show that Engler will be reelected for a third term. That is to be desired, of course. But Engler's politics-as-usual campaign has fumbled an important opportunity to educate the citizens of his state about the true evils of Jack Kevorkian, Geoffrey Fieger, and the entire assistedsuicide movement. It isn't often that opponents of the Culture of Death have such an opportunity to drive the public.debate. Engler's conspicuous failure will only make it more difficult for Michigan to stop Kevorkian when he resumes his deadly campaign, as he surely will once Fieger is sent scuttling back to his law office by the voters.
Wesley J. Smith, a frequent contributor, is an attorney for the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force and author most recently of Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder (Times Books). He is currently working on a book about bioethics.
Copyright Human Life Foundation, Incorporated Fall 1998
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved