c. 1996 Religion News Service

(RNS)-Bishop Donald Ott is accustomed to leading Michigan’s United Methodists, but for the last few weeks, he had a different job: foreman of the jury that acquitted Dr. Jack Kevorkian Friday (March 8) in Pontiac, Mich., of illegally aiding suicides.

Ott, who had written about his support of doctor-assisted suicide after losing his father to liver cancer, said he thinks the jury’s decision is a sign of a”societal shift of some major proportions.””I’m hopeful that my involvement as a bishop, as surprising as it is to everyone, including myself, will have the positive effect within the United Methodist Church-and perhaps a wider community-of looking at the issues that are involved in assisted death,”he said in an interview Tuesday (March 12).

Ott, 56, and the other members of the jury determined that Kevorkian did not violate a now-expired Michigan law banning assisted suicides. The retired pathologist had been accused of aiding the suicides of two terminally ill patients die by helping them inhale carbon monoxide through a mask.

Ott said he was quizzed by the judge and prosecution and defense attorneys about his views on assisted suicide, although they did not ask him if he had written about the issue.

The bishop expressed his personal beliefs in a 1993 column in the Michigan Christian Advocate, a United Methodist newspaper, marking the first anniversary of his father’s death.”Choosing the time of one’s death in a terminal condition can be an expression of faithful living,”he wrote.

Under questioning from the judge and lawyers during jury selection, Ott reiterated some of his views.”I told them that I believed that an individual should have the right to choose in a terminal situation their death with spiritual and medical counsel,”Ott said.

He was surprised that he was retained on the panel, but attributes the decision to his explanation to the court that he could set his views aside.”I indicated that in my responsibility as a bishop of the church I was called on to interpret and apply the law of the church and did so at times in contradiction to my own personal beliefs,”he said.

Ott called the case both”fascinating”and”grueling.” He said the jury deliberations-which lasted about nine hours over two days-were particularly difficult.”I compared it to a Ph.D. course in group dynamics compressed into one day,”he said.

Although the jurors had varied opinions about assisted suicide, in the end they focused on the wording of the law.”It was helpful to me and to a few other jurors to make a distinction between primary and secondary intentions and motives,”he said.”To have a primary motive of an intent to relieve pain and suffering removed the possibility of having a primary intention to cause death.” As the trial was concluding, an appeals court in California struck down a Washington state law banning assisted suicide, in effect making it legal in nine Western states. Ott said the jury learned of that decision from the judge in the Kevorkian case after their verdict was issued.

Although he has not seen the details of the California decision, Ott said both cases reflect a changing society.”I believe that we are in a societal shift of some major proportions around matters that played (out) in this (Kevorkian) trial,”he said.”Matters like what does it mean for a Christian or a society to be compassionate? What is the proper role of the medical doctor in the alleviation of pain and suffering?” The bishop said advances in medical technology have prompted a change in views.”It’s my sense that 50 years ago, 12 people in Oakland County would have (returned) a guilty verdict,”he said of the Michigan county where the trial took place.

Christian views on how suicide relates to sinfulness have changed in the last few decades, Ott said.”My own recollection is as a child and youth that suicide in any form was regarded as a moral failure and sinful,”he said.”I believe that was also true, for example, relative to divorce and that on both of those issues the things that have occurred in the meantime have softened positions and allowed for an acceptability.” He pointed to a passage in a 1992 United Methodist resolution, titled”Understanding Living and Dying as Faithful Christians,”as a reflection of his beliefs.”Social policies and practices,”the passage reads,”must protect the fundamental values of respect for persons, self-determination, and patient benefit of treatment.” The United Methodist Church does not endorse physician-assisted suicide, although the document states that the cessation of life for a suffering, terminally ill person”may be considered a relative good.” Ott said he believes the document lays a foundation for continuing discussions that could affirm an ethical and moral basis for assisted suicide.

Although jurors were forbidden to read newspapers during the trial, Ott said the words of the United Methodist resolution were part of his reading material.”They’re representative of my thinking and they were in my mind during those weeks,”he said,”but we focused as a jury on (the question of whether there was) evidence beyond a reasonable doubt”that Kevorkian intended to kill the two patients.

Ott has personal as well as spiritual reasons for his affirmation of doctor-assisted suicide.

He recalled thanking hospice workers at his father’s memorial service for assisting his family.

Ott said he wished the hospice staff could have taken his father’s experience of dying”one step further-to meet his wish and ours that days or a few weeks might have been shortened by a measure that would have allowed his release from life,”Ott said.

Asked if he thought assisted suicide may someday become an accepted practice in light of the Kevorkian verdict, he replied,”I hope so.”

MJP END BANKS