Dr. Jack Kevorkian's upcoming murder trial involves far more than an individual's right to die: it involves his right to live.
     After the November 60 Minutes broadcast showing Kevorkian euthanizing a Michigan man, Kevorkian challenged authorities to arrest him, which they did on a charge of first-degree murder. The "doctor of death" has admitted in interviews that his intention from the start has been to make a clear-cut test case for euthanasia.
     "But far more than euthanasia is going to be on trial," says Andrew Bernstein, senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI). "For if a man suffering from an agonizing terminal illness does not have the legal right to choose death-if the state can stop him and prolong his agony-then the question must be asked: to whom does one's life belong?"
     In a free country, an individual's life is his own. He is not the property of the government, society or God. Each individual is free to live or die as he sees fit. The issue of the right to control one's own body, free of government coercion, is not distinctive to euthanasia-it is the essence of political liberty.
     Prosecutors will be placing on trial, not just Jack Kevorkian, but the individual's right to die-and hence right to live-as a free man.