When she sentenced Jack Kevorkian to jail, the judge said the case was about the
rule of law, implying his real crime was indiscretion. Had Kevorkian not performed
on television, no one would mind. Those who favor assisted
suicide deplore the sentence as a violation of every individual's right to die.
The handicapped, who believe Kevorkian sees them as deserving death,
view the verdict as simple justice.
Neither see concepts like the rule of law as relics of a bygone
era of absolute truth and negative collective imagery.
Electric technology turns "truth" into individual opinion.
Chat room decorum freaks deplore
obscenity and seek to impose a collective limitation on individual expression.
Along that line the Supremes approved a law forbiding obscene e-mail. It
boils down to a battle between those who see expression as individual choice and
those who would impose some collective decency standard. Electric technology changes the
argument by empowering everyone to choose what they want. I write what I please,
but no one need read it. If you don't like the way I express myself, tell your
machine to reject everything I send.
Death should be not imposed on anyone against their will, but no one should
be punished for helping someone who wants to die achieve his goal.
This notion challenges what we laughingly call the rule of law because law imposes
the same behavior on all of us. Sometimes individual
liberty must be sacrificed for the collective good. We cannot drive
automobiles as the spirit moves
because no one gets anywhere without accidents. We need rules of the road.
When society has no legitimate
interest in what we do, it has no right to decree we cannot do it. Consent is crucial.
Consenting adults do what they please to each other provided they endanger no
one but themselves. Death as individual choice cuts against the present grain, but it
follows from a technology that enlarges individuals. If we control our lives, why can't
we choose death? Whose life is it anyhow?
Should Jack Kevorkian be in prison? No.