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
