Last week, a Michigan jury convicted Kevorkian of second-degree murder for killing Thomas Youk by lethal injection, but many Americans disagree with the verdict, according to polls taken after Kevorkian's conviction. The surprising answer is that most Kevorkian sympathizers say they are motivated by compassion for the terminally ill. The dirty little secret about most of Kevorkian's victims is that they had become inconvenient. They were sick, or depressed, or both. Unable to take care of themselves, neither the victims nor their families believed anyone else should be burdened with doing so either.
Euthanasia solves the problem by disposing of the burden altogether.
The elderly, as well as the young and middle-aged, have become obsessed with autonomy. No one wants to risk becoming a burden to others, and society no longer expects families to share in the care of the elderly or sick. Social Security has made the elderly largely financially independent, while assisted-living institutions have replaced families as the domicile of the frail and sick at the end of their lives. But these new arrangements may have diminished our ability to learn true compassion. Death, like birth, used to be a shared family experience that most often took place at home.