On April 13, 1999, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was sentenced to 10-25 years in prison after being found guilty of second degree murder in the mercy killing of Thomas Youk. This seems to be a confrontation with the law that Dr. Kevorkian wanted.

In the United States (except for the state of Oregon) the law recognizes no formal grounds of defense for someone accused of killing to relieve someone else's suffering from an incurable disease. Dr. Kevorkian is challenging that law. I applaud Dr. Kevorkian's effort and suggest that the law in the United States regarding euthanasia needs to change.

Many elderly people are trapped in their own bodies, not knowing who or where they are and living out the last part of their lives, often disoriented, in a nursing home. This is a waste of billions of dollars annually that is badly needed in other areas of society. However, money is not my main motivation for wanting the law changed regarding euthanasia. My main reason is to reduce the suffering of individuals and their loved ones. I have never met one person who wants to end up living in a nursing home. Yet millions of us do just that.

I became a proponent of euthanasia after watching my mother die and then later my first wife die of cancer. I was further influenced by visiting my mother in a nursing home over an 18-month period. My mother was able to live independently past her 90th birthday with a lot of help and love from her five children. One day during my weekly visit my mother informed me that she had lived too long, that she was worn out, and hoped that we would soon find her dead. Instead of dying she had a partial stroke, fell, broke her hip, and after repairs in a hospital ended up in a nursing home. She did not know who she was nor did she recognize her family. She was unable to communicate her needs in any way. She became extremely tearful if she ever got close to being reminded of her painful reality. Under the law, we were unable to deny any treatment that would prolong her life; it would have been better if we could have released her from the indignity of the last eighteen months of her life.

My first wife Nancy died of cancer eighteen months after diagnosis. The last nine months of her life were agonizing for everyone close to her. Thanks to the help from Hospice, medication helped control most of her pain. However, the control of pain came at tremendous cost such as disorientation and hallucinations. She begged for help to die. We surely wished that we personally knew Dr. Kevorkian at that time.

I realize that life is precious and that society needs to move carefully regarding euthanasia, but I have found that there are conditions worse than death. We can create new laws that would protect life but not interfere with the free, informed choices of citizens in matters that do not cause others harm.

--Paul Moore