tagged w/ Jack Kevorkian
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Dr. Jack Kevorkian passed away on June 3. He died the old-fashioned way – in a Michigan hospital bed while suffering from pulmonary thrombosis. Kevorkian, also known as “Dr. Death”, was famous as a proponent and provider of physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill.Dr. Jack Kevorkian passed away on June 3. He died the old-fashioned way – in a... more
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c7girl
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12 months ago
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http://i1.nyt.com/images/2011/06/04/obituaries/04kevorkian/04kevorkian-hpMedium.jpg
Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the central figure in the tumultuous national drama surrounding assisted suicide, died Friday in a Michigan hospital. He was 83 and lived in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
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Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times
Jack Kevorkian during an interview with The New York Times in Michigan in 2007.
The cause of his death was not immediately known, but local media reported that he had suffered from kidney and respiratory problems and that his condition had been worsening in recent days. His death was confirmed by Geoffrey Feiger, the lawyer who represented him during several of his trials in the 1990s.
Dr. Kevorkian, a medical pathologist, challenged social taboos about disease and dying, willfully defied prosecutors and the courts, actively sought national celebrity, and spent eight years in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in the death of the last of the more than 100 terminally ill patients whose lives he helped end.
From June 1990, when he assisted in the first suicide, until March 1999, when he was sentenced to serve 10 to 25 years in a maximum security prison, Dr. Kevorkian was a controversial figure. But his critics and supporters generally agree on this: As a result of his stubborn and often intemperate advocacy for the right of the terminally ill to choose how they die, hospice care has boomed in the United States, and physicians have become more sympathetic to their pain and more willing to prescribe medication to relieve it.
In 1997, Oregon became the first state to enact a statute making it legal for physicians to prescribe lethal medications to help terminally ill patients end their lives. In 2006 the United States Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that found that Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act protected a legitimate medical practice.
During the nine years between the law’s passage and the court’s ruling, Dr. Kevorkian’s confrontational strategy consumed thousands of column inches in national newspapers, graced the covers of national magazines and drew the attention of “60 Minutes” and other television news programs. His nickname, Dr. Death, and his self-made suicide machine, which he variously called the “Mercitron” or the “Thanatron,” became fodder for late-night television comedians.
Given his obdurate public persona and his delight in flaying medical critics as “hypocritic oafs,” Dr. Kevorkian invited and reveled in the public’s attention, regardless of its sting.
The American Medical Association in 1995 called him “a reckless instrument of death” who “poses a great threat to the public.”
Diane Coleman, the founder of Not Dead Yet, a right-to-life advocacy group that once picketed Dr. Kevorkian’s home in Royal Oak, a Detroit suburb, attacked his approach. “It’s the ultimate form of discrimination to offer people with disabilities help to die,” she said, “without having offered real options to live."
But Jack Lessenberry, a prominent Michigan journalist who closely covered Dr. Kevorkian’s one-man campaign, said: “Jack Kevorkian, faults and all, was a major force for good in this society. He forced us to pay attention to one of the biggest elephants in society’s living room: the fact that today vast numbers of people are alive who would rather be dead, who have lives not worth living.”
In the late 1980s, after an undistinguished career in medicine and an unsuccessful try at a career in the arts, Dr. Kevorkian rediscovered the fascination with death, not as a private event but as a focus of public policy, that had marked his early years in medicine.
As a student at the University of Michigan Medical School, where he graduated in 1952, and later as a resident at the University of Michigan Medical Center, Dr. Kevorkian proposed giving murderers condemned to die the option of being executed with anesthesia in order to subject their bodies to medical experimentation and allow the harvesting of their healthy organs. He delivered a paper on the subject to a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1958.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Dr. Kevorkian shelved his quixotic campaign to engage death for social purposes and pursued a largely itinerant career as a medical pathologist. Though his friends described him as funny, witty, personable and engaging in private, those he met in work and social situations portrayed him as awkward, grim, driven, quick to anger and unpredictable.http://i1.nyt.com/images/2011/06/04/obituaries/04kevorkian/04kevorkian-hpMedium.jpg... more
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Nova Southeastern University's Distinguished Speaker Series in Davie, FL hosted Jack Kevorkian on February 5th at 7:00 PM. Formerly known as "Dr. Death" and recently released from prison where he served eight years for his part in an assisted suicide that was broadcast on national news showing him pushing the button that administered the lethal dose, Kevorkian has not lost his controversial spark.
The majority of the lecture was rambling and broken with "senior moments" by Kevorkian who occasionally lost his train of thought and some listeners left before the end. For those who left early, they missed the highlight of the evening; the switching of our traditional American Flag for one with the stars replaced with a swastika which Kevorkian claims was a representation image of what the United States is becoming. Gasps of shock erupted from the crowd of 2500 attendees.
One professional photographer located down front momentarily lost his professionalism and composure and assaulted the elderly and feeble Kevorkian with a litany of verbal attacks. First he shouted, "I hope you use your machine on yourself!" followed by "that is an image of DEATH!" Kevorkian replied, "but this is what we are becoming!"
Audience members watched in both amusement and shock as Kevorkian and this photographer (identity unknown) engaged in a verbal confrontation over Kevorkian's controversial method of conveying his message about the steady loss of freedoms and self-determination in this country over the course of his lifetime.
This reporter can only close with, "An interesting time was had by all....except of course for those who chose to cut out early because they couldn't suffer the ramblings of an old man beaten by the system....or is he?"Nova Southeastern University's Distinguished Speaker Series in Davie, FL hosted... more
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Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian has collected enough signatures to be on the November ballot as a congressional candidate in Michigan.Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian has collected enough signatures to be on the... more
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Civil rights and assisted suicide pioneer Jack Kevorkian is seeking a seat in the United States Congress. Kevorkian was released from prison last year following an 8 year and 2 1/2 month sentence for helping gravely and painfully ill people finalize their lives. The 79 year old hero to many, hopes he can bring honesty to an otherwise corrupt Washington government while ousting Republican incumbent Rep. Joe Knollenberg. Kevorkian will run as an independent.
"Kevorkian, 79, claims to have helped at least 130 people die from 1990 until 1998 -- the year he was charged in the death of Thomas Youk, a 52-year-old Oakland County man with Lou Gehrig's disease. Kevorkian has promised not to help in any other assisted suicides and could go back to prison if he did."
Little progress has been made in the euthanasia movement as it is rarely discussed in politics. Oregon is the only state that has laws to protect doctors who assist patients with painless and supervised deaths. But even those laws are too strict according to some.
As baby boomers age, there is little doubt that euthanasia will once again become a predominate issue. While medical science has advanced enough to prolong lives, it has done little to improve the quality of life as Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases are increasing substantially.
Those in favor of death rights argue for removal of government's overbearing attitude in what is ultimately a serious personal decision; one that could be aided in a painless and professional way by doctors who care. Civil rights and assisted suicide pioneer Jack Kevorkian is seeking a seat in the... more
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79-year-old Jack Kevorkian spent 8 years in prison for second degree murder in the 1998 assisted suicide of Thomas Youk. But now he's running for office, calling for "honesty and sincerity instead of corrupt government in Washington."
Kevorkian will need to gather 3,000 signatures in order for his name to be on the ballot, and he's running in a district where the Republican incumbent only won his last election with 51.5% of the vote. Does he stand a chance?79-year-old Jack Kevorkian spent 8 years in prison for second degree murder in the... more
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Tori
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4 years ago
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