Zaritsky raises the issue of our inalienable right to commit suicide – whether ill or not. Kevorkian considers laws that ban suicide and iatric euthanasia "worse than immoral. They are downright illegal." In Cornucopia, Kevorkian defends the Ninth Amendment as "the twenty-one most important words in the U.S. Constitution."
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Human rights are not limited to those named in the Constitution, and laws that block those rights are unconstitutional. Just as a woman has a natural born right to abort a fetus, and everyone has a natural right to choose whom to love and marry, all humans have a right to choose the timing and manner of their own demise. In Cornucopia, Kevorkian details several natural rights that he deems the "hallmark of a truly enlightened democracy." He prefaces them with:
"The first one listed below subsumes all the others which are mere corollaries, and its emphasized qualifying admonition also pertains to all of them. Therefore, I have a basic natural right:
To do or not to do and to say or not to say anything, anywhere, to anybody, at any time, in any way, so long as anyone else and/or his or her property are not verifiably threatened or harmed, and no personal obligation is imposed on anybody without the latter's consent;
To choose with whom and/or what to associate and/or deal, and whom or what to shun;
To refuse to cooperate with and/or participate in any coercive endeavor;
To choose where, when, and how to live and to die;
To express openly anywhere, at any time, in any way, and by any means one's opinion;
To possess and/or carry anything on one's person;
To create and/or destroy anything of one's own;
To eschew public or religious education for one's children to be tutored privately;
To operate any vehicle without using helmets or belts;
To choose to indulge in mutually voluntary commercial or recreational coitus;
To choose whom one will live with, love, and/or marry;
To choose to do anything that may affect one's own body externally or internally, including the purchase of another's or the sale of one's own, bodily organ(s) or part(s) thereof for medical purposes;
To choose to read and/or write anything, for any purpose, and to create and/or see any visual presentation;
To choose to legally procure and to display or to destroy one's private property, or on property for use by the public, any symbols or flags of any group or nation;
Etc., etc., etc."
Dr. Jack Kevorkian's compassionate and common sense approach to ending human suffering is but one facet of his decades-long advocacy of the Ninth Amendment. Like Henry David Thoreau, Nelson Mandela, and Aung San Suu Kyi, Kevorkian was wrongfully imprisoned for advocating human rights. He warned the audience, "To be active, you must be committed. To be committed is dangerous." That is especially true in a police state with the highest incarceration ratein the world.
In 2004, Rady Ananda joined the growing community of citizen journalists. Initially focused on elections, she investigated the 2004 Ohio election, organizing, training and leading several forays into counties to photograph the 2004 ballots. She officially served at three recounts, including the 2004 recount. She also organized and led the team that audited Franklin County Ohio's 2006 election, proving the number of voter signatures did not match official results. Her work appears in three books.
Her blogs also address religious, gender, sexual and racial equality, as well as environmental issues; and are sprinkled with book and film reviews on various topics. She spent most of her working life as a researcher or investigator for private lawyers, and five years as an editor.
She graduated from The Ohio State University's School of Agriculture in December 2003 with a B.S. in Natural Resources.
All material offered here is the property of Rady Ananda, copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009. Permission is granted to repost, with proper attribution including the original link.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." Tell the truth anyway.
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