Right To Die - Jeremiah Healy (11 page)

I was turning as Bacall said it, because I could hear
the clumping on the floor. Five white kids, heads shaved, were
stamping their boots just enough to attract the attention of the
cops. The cops couldn't do much when the kids stopped their noise and
held up their hands in mock innocence. They took three seats a few
rows below us and two more seats immediately in front of the three.
All wore brown leather flying jackets over white T-shirts and studded
blue jeans, the jeans bloused into the boots like army fatigue pants.
Body language suggested that the kid in the middle, a redhead from
his eyebrows, was the leader. One of the others called him "Gun."

Maybe short for "Gunther," as in Gunther
Yary, the author of the white supremacist hate letters in the Andrus
file.

I said to Bacall, "Know them?"

"No."

"See anybody else I ought to worry about?"

Bacall murmured something to Wonsley, and they both
craned forward, scanning the room. Each hesitated on a few places as
people turned to talk to each other or stood to remove another layer
of clothing. Wonsley looked at Bacall, shook his head, and settled
back.

Bacall did the same but pointed toward the sashed
area. "I can introduce you later, but the striking man sitting
next to Manolo and Inés is Tucker Hebert."

Hebert was turned sideways, deep in conversation with
his wife's secretary. He had broad shoulders under a dull rose
blazer. His hair was dishwater blond, but the cleft in his chin
caught you even from the bleachers.

Del Wonsley said, "First time I saw him in
tennis shorts, I cried myself to sleep."

The only empty spaces were around the skinheads. A
few late arrivals chose to stand rather than sit near them.

Without fanfare, a side door on the stage opened, and
the crowd began to applaud. A man and three women, one of them Maisy
Andrus in her yellow sweater dress, walked out in a line. The man and
one of the other women were white and wore suits. The third woman was
black and wore a choir robe.

The skinheads made hooting noises. One of them said,
"Christ, Gun, check out old Maisy in the yellow horse blanket."

Gun said, "Fuck all, Rick. She didn't shave her
legs, I'da thought she was a Clydesdale."

Rick said, "Maybe the guy drives the Bud wagon
knocked off a little early, y'know," then ducked his head and
shrank from the look Gun gave him. Like it was one thing to feed Gun
a line and another to top his joke.

The white member of the police team came down the
aisle. He stopped at Gun's row and leaned in, armpit in a skinhead's
eyes. A series of grunts was all you could hear, but when the cop
walked back up the aisle, the skinheads were facing front and staying
quiet. Wonsley laid his head lightly on Bacall's shoulder. "Ah,
for the paramilitary life."

The white woman on the stage settled the other three
into their seats behind the table and moved to the podium.

As the house lights dimmed, she stood in the baby
spot and introduced herself as Olivia Jurick, the manager of Plato's
Bookshop. Jurick thanked a covey of public and private benefactors
for helping to sponsor the event before thanking everybody for coming
out on a cold winter night for such an important and stimulating
topic of our time.

Then, "Our first speaker will be the Reverend
Vonetta Givens. Our second speaker will be Dr. Paul Eisenberg, and
our third speaker will be Professor Maisy Andrus. After all have
presented prepared remarks, there will be an opportunity for
questions from the audience."

Jurick turned a page. "Reverend Vonetta Givens
is the pastor of All Hallowed Ground Church of Roxbury. Born in
Oklahoma, Reverend Givens is a graduate of Morehouse College in
Atlanta and attended several theological seminaries prior to her
ordination in 1979. She ministered to congregations in Atlanta,
Memphis, and Trenton before assuming her present position in 1984. A
charter member of Boston Against Drugs, Reverend Givens leads the
African-American community's struggle against the scourge of crack
cocaine. She also has been extremely active among the elderly and the
infirm."

Olivia Jurick's voice dropped, and I expected to hear
Reverend Givens at that point. So, apparently, did Reverend Givens,
because she had gathered her papers into a sheaf, almost rising
before Jurick continued.

"Our second speaker, Dr. Paul Eisenberg, is a
graduate of Cornell University and the Harvard Medical School. Dr.
Eisenberg is currently a member of the Department of Internal
Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and adjunct professor of
ethics at the Tufts University School of Medicine. Between college
and medical school, Dr. Eisenberg served for two years in the Peace
Corps in Brazil, and enjoyed staff privileges at Mount Sinai Hospital
in New York and Philadelphia Presbyterian before assuming his present
position in 1986." Jurick held up a book. "Dr. Eisenberg is
also the author of The Ethical Physician in the Modern World."

Eisenberg, poring over his notes, didn't look up at
the audience.

"Our third speaker is Professor Maisy Andrus of
the Law School of Massachusetts Bay. A widely known lecturer in the
area of legal and societal mores, Professor Andrus is a graduate of
Bryn Mawr and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. Prior to
joining the faculty at Mass Bay, she taught at Boston College School
of Law and George Mason University. Professor Andrus practiced health
and hospital law in Washington, D.C., also serving as a school
committee member and a trustee of a battered women's shelter."

Jurick held up another book. "Professor Andrus
is the author of Our Right to Die."

Jurick lowered the book. "It is now my pleasure
to turn the podium over to our first speaker, the Reverend Vonetta
Givens.

Reverend Givens?"

Steady applause began as Jurick retreated to the
shadow chair. Parishioners shouted brief encouragement as Givens
moved to the mike. Perhaps five three under a beehive wig, even the
robe couldn't conceal the serious tonnage she carried. Wonsley
whispered, "I've heard she's very good." The mike was on a
gooseneck. Givens adjusted it, none too gently, down to mouth level.
She spread her notes across the podium, clamped both hands on the
sides of the surface, and opened fire.

"You all have been told this is a debate
tonight. I suggest to you it is no such thing. I suggest to you that
it is a contest, a contest you shall witness between the forces of
God and the forces that are not God's."

A few voices said, "That's right,"
stressing the first word.

"The forces that are not God's are those who
would say that life is not for God to take but rather for man. For
man to take when man has grown too tired of caring for the sick, too
tired of doing for the elderly, too tired of fulfilling the natural
and divine duty each and every one of us has to assist his brother
and sister in their times of greatest need and weakness."

More "That's right" and several "Amens"
piped up politely. "Which of you would cast the first stone by
saying, 'It is too much trouble for me to tend my own? Which of you
would sleep better, eat better, live better, knowing you had ended a
life you knew and loved? A life which God as part of His almighty and
miraculous plan had placed before you to nurture. When we wore the
chains of the white slave owners, we were forbidden to learn how to
read and write. It was a crime for anyone to teach us such things.
Are we who know the worst of what it is to have decisions made for us
and against us and on top of us, are we now to say, 'I know what is
best for that life, and what is best is that I should end it?' "

What started as "That's right" and "Amen"
became "No! No!"

"Of course we are not to say that. We are not to
say that because we are creatures of God and creatures of conscience.
Creatures that can love and pray and give thanks for loving and
praying both, because those qualities are what truly separate us from
the beasts of fang and hoof. If we were to kill our brothers and
sisters, our fathers and mothers, who gave us life itself, just
because it has become more expensive and less efficient to clutch
these dear souls to our bosom, then what have we become? We have gone
back and dropped down, we have rejoined the beasts of fang and hoof,
tearing at kin and neighbor just to make our own lives easier. And
that must never be."

A lot of the black members of the audience leaned
forward in their seats, sensing the crescendo before I did. A thin
sheen of perspiration above the reverend's eyebrows refracted the
baby spot almost mystically.

"That must never be because then who would be
safe from the twin swords of expense and efficiency? Who can we
justify maintaining in our nursing homes as their lives draw to a
close in God's unknowable time? Who can we justify healing and
strengthening at the midpoint of a life so far not productive, so far
not in the image that Wall Street and Madison Avenue would have us
embrace? And who can we justify suckling and warming and bringing
forth from the nursery, when we know deep down in our hearts that no
one can predict what turn that life might take.

"I suggest to you, to you brother and to you
sister, that no one can approach, that no one can exceed, that no one
can" — Givens fixed Eisenberg and Andrus — "debate the
infinite and everlasting judgment of the Lord God and Jesus Christ as
to which of the creatures fashioned in Their image is now ready to be
returned to Them. Amen."

Givens scooped up her notes and went back to her
seat. Most of the blacks and perhaps twenty percent of the whites
gave her a standing ovation, stamping their feet harder than they
were clapping their hands.

Over the din I heard Rick, the second banana, say to
Gun, "We do it, the cops are on us like fucking glue. The
niggers do it — "

Gun cut him off by raising his hand in a stop sign.

Jurick waited until the tumult died away before
moving to the microphone. "Thank you, Reverend Givens. And now,
ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Paul Eisenberg."

Eisenberg, over six feet tall, got up in fits and
starts, his chair not gliding back. He was bald, with a full beard
and half glasses. His hand shook visibly as he laid his papers on the
podium. Eisenberg began to read from them without readjusting the
height of the microphone. He stopped and twisted the mike as people
in the audience tittered.

Eisenberg started over. "Unlike Reverend Givens
before me and Professor Andrus to follow, I am not an accomplished
public speaker. Therefore, I have to hope that the logic of what I
have to say to you can rise above my awkwardness in saying it. My
ultimate message, however, transcends even logic. That message is,
'First, do no harm.'

"That is the cornerstone of all medical
training. The physician must first be certain that he does — excuse
me. that he or she — does no harm to the patient involved. Our
entire mission is to save lives, not to contribute, directly or
indirectly, to the taking of them. There can be no right to die
because there can be no right to kill, not even one's own self,
because suicide is an act recognized as a crime by the entirety of
the civilized world. To be confronted with a situation in which a
patient, or the family of a patient, requests that a physician end
life is simply anesthetic — excuse me, is simply antithetical —
to all we believe in as physicians within a civilized society."

People shifted in their seats, many coughing. One
loud sneeze produced a collective low laugh.

"As some of you may know, we have a system in
Massachusetts under which the relatives of a terribly sick patient
can petition a court of law to rule on the administering or
withholding of certain life-sustaining processes. With all respect to
the profession of the next speaker, I do not understand how a state
like Massachusetts, which has outlawed within its judicial system the
death penalty for even the most heinous crime, can then turn to that
same judicial system and say 'Please impose the death penalty on a
patient whose only transgression is to have fallen sick.' A patient
who is typically comatose and who may present" — Eisenberg
looked up at us for the first time — "as Reverend Givens so
eloquently stated, a, uh . . . excuse me." Eisenberg ran a
finger down the page. ". . . a burden, may present a burden both
financial and emotional, to the family and the treatment delivery
system. I am troubled with becoming an advocate and, worse, an
instrument for the death of one patient so that another patient, who
I believe might benefit more from treatment of a limited
availability, could now be accommodated.

"However, I am even more troubled by a system in
which such decisions are made secretly, without even benefit of a
logically flawed justice system. I am most troubled by the very real
possibility of people taking the law into their own hands in a way
that is not only illegal but immoral and would undermine the very
protections of the individual upon which our society is based. Each
of us is only as safe as his or her neighbor. For any of us to be
safe, all of us must be safe."

Eisenberg looked up again. "Uh, thank you for
your attention."

Strained applause died away before the doctor resumed
his seat. Nobody likes to be read to.