Jack Kevorkian

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Jack Kevorkian, M.D. (born May 26, 1928) is a controversial American pathologist. He is most noted for publically championing a terminal patient's "right to die" and for assisting several patients to that end, and is currently serving out a prison sentence for his practices.

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Writings

In the early 1980s, Kevorkian published numerous articles in the German journal Medicine and Law outlining his ideas on euthanasia and ethics. In 1988 Kevorkian's article, "The Last Fearsome Taboo: Medical Aspects of Planned Death," was published in Medicine and Law. In it, he outlined his proposed system of planned deaths in suicide clinics, including medical experimentation on patients. In 1993, he published Prescription Medicide: The Goodness of Planned Death. As a result of the public attention that came from the assisted suicides he participated in and subsequent trials, the American media began to refer to him as "Dr. Death".

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Career

Kevorkian started advertising in Detroit papers in 1987 as a "physician consultant" for "death counseling." Between 1990 and 1998 Kevorkian assisted in the suicide of over one hundred terminally ill people. In each of these cases, the individuals themselves took the final action which resulted in their own deaths: voluntary euthanasia. Dr. Kevorkian assisted only by attaching the individual to a device that he had made. The individual then pushed a button which released the drugs or chemicals that would end his or her own life. Two deaths were assisted by means of a device which employed a needle, which delivered the euthanizing drugs mechanically through an IV. Kevorkian called it a "Thanatron" (death machine). Other patients were assisted by a device which employed a gas mask fed by a canister of carbon monoxide which was called "Mercitron" (mercy machine). This became necessary because Kevorkian's medical license had been revoked after the first two deaths and he could no longer get the substances required for "Thanatron". Many of people whom Kevorkian assisted in dying were Unitarian Universalists.

On the November 22, 1998 broadcast of 60 Minutes, Kevorkian allowed the airing of a videotape he had made on September 17, 1998, which featured the voluntary euthanasia of Thomas Youk, an adult male with full decisional capacity who was in the final stages of ALS. After Youk provided his fully-informed consent, on September 17, 1998, Kevorkian administered a lethal injection; which caused others to become skeptical of his "assisted suicide" treatment due to the fact that Kevorkian single-handedly "caused" the death.

During much of this period, Kevorkian was represented by attorney Geoffrey Fieger.

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Conviction and imprisonment

Kevorkian was tried numerous times over the years for assisting in suicides. Many of these trials took place in Oakland County, Michigan. In every instance prior to the Thomas Youk case Kevorkian was acquitted.

Kevorkian was even beginning to gain public support for his cause, as is best evidenced by the defeat in the Republican primary of Oakland County prosecutor Richard Thompson at the hands of David Gorcyca, a defeat at least in part attributable to declining public support from the prosecution of Kevorkian.

Kevorkian also demonstrated a flair for dramatic publicity stunts at this time, showing up to one trial in a powdered wig, and protesting an incarceration pursuant to another trial by staging a hunger strike.

On March 26, 1999, Kevorkian was charged with second-degree murder for the delivery of a controlled substance (administering a lethal injection to Thomas Youk).

A Michigan jury subsequently found Kevorkian guilty. It was finally proven that he had directly killed a person, because his patient was not physically able to kill himself. He is currently in prison in Michigan, serving a 10-to-25-year sentence. On December 22, 2005 Kevorkian was denied parole by a board on the count of 7-2 recommending not to give parole.

He now seeks a pardon. He will become eligible for parole in 2007. In an MSNBC interview aired on September 29, 2005, Kevorkian indicated that if he is granted parole, he will not resume directly helping people die, and will restrict himself to campaigning to have the law changed.

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Artwork

Kevorkian was in an adult education oil painting course in Pontiac, Michigan in the 1960s. His art combined his knowledge of human anatomy with his fascination with death. Michael Betzold described the 18 canvases he created in this course as bold and strident, as critical and unforgiving, as pointed and dramatic as Kevorkian's own fighting words. They are strikingly well executed — stark and surreal — and frightening, demented and/or hilarious, depending on one's point of view." Although the 18 original canvases have been lost, Kevorkian returned to his art in the 90s to finance his crusade for assisted-suicide.

His art frequently returns to themes of hypocrisy, pain, war, death, self-destruction, suicide, despair, and criticisms of contemporary culture and Christianity.

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See also

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References

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External links

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