 |
|
|
 Editorials | Opinions | June 2007 
Dr. Kevorkian’s Wrong Way
 NYTimes
| | Euthanasia proponent Dr. Jack Kevorkian, dubbed "Dr. Death" for assisting in some 130 suicides, vowed he will no longer help people end their lives, even if they come to him in desperation. |
Dr. Jack Kevorkian — a k a “Doctor Death” for helping chronically ill and terminally ill patients commit suicide — has emerged from prison as deluded and unrepentant as ever. Brushing aside criticism by other supporters of medically assisted suicide that his tactics were reckless and harmful to their cause, Dr. Kevorkian asserted: “I did it right. I didn’t care what they did or didn’t do. When I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right.”
The irony, of course, is that he did it wrong, and in performing assisted suicides so badly, he besmirched the movement he hoped to energize. If his antics provided anything of value, it was as a reminder of how much terminally ill patients can suffer and of the need for sane and humane laws allowing carefully regulated assisted suicides.
Dr. Kevorkian first drew national attention in 1990 when he hooked up a 54-year-old Alzheimer’s patient to his homemade suicide machine and watched as she pushed a button to release lethal drugs. By the time he was jailed nine years later, he claimed to have helped more than 130 terminally ill or chronically ill patients take their own lives.
What tripped him up was his ego and a limitless appetite for publicity. In a procedure that was taped to be shown later on national television, he gave the lethal injections to a 52-year-old man with Lou Gehrig’s disease — thereby moving beyond assisted suicide to euthanasia.
He challenged prosecutors to indict him, apparently hoping the trial would provide a showcase for arguing his cause. But the judge blocked any testimony from family members who supported the death and disallowed evidence about the patient’s suffering and consent as irrelevant in a murder trial. The jury found the doctor guilty of second-degree murder.
The fundamental flaw in Dr. Kevorkian’s crusade was his cavalier, indeed reckless, approach. He was happy to hook up patients without long-term knowledge of their cases or any corroborating medical judgment that they were terminally ill or suffering beyond hope of relief with aggressive palliative care. This was hardly “doing it right” as Dr. Kevorkian likes to believe.
By contrast, Oregon, which has the only law allowing terminally ill adults to request a lethal dose of drugs from a physician, requires two physicians to agree that the patient is of sound mind and has less than six months to live. Now California is about to vote on a similarly careful measure. One of its sponsors cites Dr. Kevorkian as “the perfect reason we need this law in California. We don’t want there to be more Dr. Kevorkians.” |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us