Legal suicide raises questions
The last bit of confetti has no
doubt been swept from the floors.
The bands have gone home.
Tears of joy and sorrow have
been shed.
Election ’94 is over.
The Republicans now control
the House, the Senate and a
majority of the governorships.
Oliver North lost.
Carol McShane will have to
remember that her title is Mrs., not
senator.
And Mario Cuomo, the man who
could have been president, may
become the commissioner of
baseball after losing to a one-time
mayor of Peekskill.
Peekskill? Isn’t that where Blair,
Jo, Tootie and Natalie lived with
Mrs. Garrett?
Nebraska will continue to
commit premeditated, first-degree
murder and call it execution.
And terminally ill persons with
less than six months to live can, in
the state of Oregon, legally choose
medically assisted suicide begin
ning Dec. 8, 1994.
I have thought a lot about this
practice for a long time.
When 1 was 20 years old, we
had to put my Pekingese, Mitzi, to
sleep. She was very old and could
barely walk. She cried all the time
because she was in so much pain.
But I cried a lot when she died.
The vet said it was the humane
thing to do.
I believe that.
But we aren’t talking about pets
here. We’re talking about our lovec
ones — not that people can’t love
pets.
My mom died of cancer seven
years ago. It started as breast
cancer and spread to her spine.
Many (doctors) feel this is playing
God. I agree, but doctors play God all
the time. Today, physicians are often
left with the choice of who will receive
a transplant and who will die.
She was fortunate in one way:
She didn’t have to suffer for a long
period of time. She died eight
months after the cancer was found.
But she was in a great deal of
pain and mentally out of it, thanks
to the drugs.
Is this humane?
I read an article written by the
wife of the youngest person to have
received help from Dr. Jack
Kevorkian. Her story was poignant.
She wrote of the love and respect
she had for her husband who was
dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease.
As 1 read that, 1 thought of my
mom. If she had been able to make
the choice, would she have wanted
to die sooner?
Hindsight isn’t always 20/20.1
don’t have an answer to that. I just
know 1 don’t like the memories of
her suffering.
Many physicians in Oregon have
said that they would not aid in
suicides. Many feel this is playing
God.
I agree, but doctors play God all
the time. Today physicians are
1 often left with the choice of who
will receive a transplant and who
will die.
The concern I have is with the
wording “with less than six months
to live.
This is ambiguous. If I want to 1!
die now, I can just search until I
find a doctor who will tell me I
have less than six months to live.
That shouldn’t be hard.
What if the doctor is wrong?
What if a cure is found the day
after one has chosen to die? Then is
it considered murder? Will the
doctor be sent to jail?
My father and I had a conversa
tion on this the other night. He
questioned the ability to be pro
choice, anti-death penalty and pro
physician-assisted suicide.
At the time, I argued that he was
comparing apples and oranges and
grapefruits. As I sit here now, I'm
not so sure he’s completely wrong.
One problem I have with the
death penalty is there are a lot of
innocent people in prison and
guilty people on the streets laugh
ing. What if the man we murder
today is found to be innocent
tomorrow?
What if the person who chooses
to die today is found to have been
misdiagnosed tomorrow?
How many opinions should a
person get before choosing to die?
Artbar b ■ senior news-editorial major
Halloween is over, but Chancel
lor Spamster and his administrative
cronies are still hunting for
witches.
It appears that assistant profes
sor Raymond Massey might be just
what the administration is looking
for, one of those evil Christian
boys.
Massey, a self-described
evangelical Protestant, was recently
punished for his religious beliefs
when he was removed from a
search committee. It was the search
committee's duty to find a director
for the Southeast Research and
Extension Center, but evidently
Massey’s religious beliefs dis
qualify him from such a position
(read: Christians need not apply).
All of this hubbub centers on a
vote taken last month to change the
constitution of an association that
oversees a 4-H camp in Gretna.
Massey, along with 19 other
members of tne association, voted
to leave sexual orientation out of
the association’s nondiscrimination
policy.
The association’s constitution
should give them, not Spam-a
Gram, the right to change the
policy. This makes sense because
the association oversees a 4-H
camp, not a university classroom.
When Dr. Ken Bolen, dean of
UNL’s Cooperative Extension,
contacted Massey about the
association’s actions, Massey told
the dean he had problems with the
university’s nondiscrimination
policy. Because of his religious
convictions, he had concerns about
inclusion of homosexuals in UNL’s
nondiscrimination statement.
The next thing you know,
Massey is removed from an
unrelated search committee by
Bolen, and Chancellor Cracker is
telling the Academic Senate that
the man is a bigot.
According to Cocker Spanier,
Massey “clearly stated to nis
superiors his unwillingness to
In reading UNL’s nondiscrimination
policy, you would assume that
religion and sexual orientation
would be treated equally, but
obviously that is not the case.
follow the university’s policy of
nondiscrimination.” But according
to Massey, no such statement was
ever made. He said he told his
superiors he disagreed with the
policy, not that he was unwilling to
follow it.
Why then was he removed from
an unrelated search committee?
Why didn’t Can o’ Spam give
Massey a call to find out what
occurred at a meeting with his
superiors?
I’ll tell you why: Massey is a
Christian and in PC speak, that
means second-class citizen. In
reading UNL’s nondiscrimination
policy, you would assume that
religion and sexual orientation
would be treated equally, but
obviously that is not the case.
Maybe the university’s nondis
crimination policy should be
rewritten with a number behind the
various groups indicating their
relative weight on the list. Sexual
orientation could get a 10, gender
and race could get a nine, non
Christian religions could get a six
and Christians could get a fat zero.
Grammy-gram shouldn’t be
judged too harshly, however; the
administration is placed in the
impossible situation of upholding a
policy that is necessarily inconsis
tent. This is the crux of America’s
Culture War.
A policy devised to shield
homosexuals from intellectual
discourse about their lifestyle
cannot be consistent with a policy
that seeks to uphold the religious
freedom of individuals with
objections to homosexual activity.
The only outcome such a policy
can have is censorship.
On one hand you have enraged
homosexuals, frustrated and
unhappy that their lifestyle is
viewed as morally bankrupt by
their political opponents. On the
other hand, you have people of
various religions trying to uphold
moral lifestyles for themselves and
their children in a society that is
becoming increasingly anti
religious and spiritually defunct.
Both sides cannot win. What
middle ground can there be for two
fundamentally opposing world
views?
According to the university,
there can be none. For men like
Raymond Massey, there is no room
at the inn.
Bolen and Green-Eggs-&-Spam
have sided with the secular (which
means anti-religious in PC speak)
minority against the religious
freedom of American citizens.
Thomas Jefferson is rolling over in
his grave.
It’s time for the Gramster to
read a copy of the U.S. Constitu
tion. Massey has every right to his
opinion, and the university’s
actions are nothing more than
cleverly disguised religious
persecution.
Keep the faith Ray; the
Constitution’s on your side. '
Tucker la ■ amlor biology major and a
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