HW 30 - Illness & Dying - Culminating Experiential Project

What was Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s role in Physician-assisted suicide and how did the public view him and his practices in the 1990s?

Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is the voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician. In the debate of whether or not physician-assisted suicide should be legal the main arguments are: yes, it should be legal because those who are suffering deserve the right to die with dignity and: no, it should not be legal because in all circumstances doctors should do everything possible to save the life of their patients.

The most well known doctor to be associated with physician-assisted suicide is Dr. Jack Kevorkian, also known as Dr. Death. In 1989 Dr. Kevorkian spent $30 dollars on spare parts to build Thanatron (meaning suicide machine). Thanaron is built so that the physician prepares the machine, but it is the patient who presses a button to release a deadly drug. Two years later Dr. Kevorkian’s first patient was a 54 year old woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease. By 1993 Jack had assisted with the deaths of over more than 120 people all of whom were either chronically or fatally ill. His initial "assisted suicides" led to a 1993 Michigan law that specifically prohibited him from continuing, a law he openly defied in an effort to force the issue into the courts. Dr. Kevorkian believed that if am ill person is permitted to die (accepting of their own death) then they should be injected, quickly and painlessly. In 1995 Dr. Kevorkian opened up a “suicide clinic” in Michigan one patient was treated there and then Jack was kicked out by the owner of the building. Kevorkian was acquitted numerous times for charges of murder, but in 1999 he was convicted of second degree murder for the death of Tom Youk and delivery of a controlled substance he was sentenced to 10-25 years in prison. In 2007 Kevorkian was put on parole with restrictions designed to prevent him from promoting or participating in assisted suicide, Kevorkian was 79.

One of the opposing opinions was that Dr. Kevorkian was playing the role of god and he was deciding who was to die and who was to survive. The national spinal cord injury association opposed physician assisted suicide because they believed that there were better ways around the pain and suffering. Another opposing view point was that to refuse medical treatment was the individual’s choice to die, but to be involved in assisted suicide was to give another person the power to take your life, thus giving them the power to kill. One thing that people who opposed physician assisted suicide didn’t realize was that what Dr. Kevorkian’s patients came to him and the patients families begged for his help. Kevorkian wasn’t supporting any patients who didn’t want to die. In all but one case his patients released the fatal chemicals into their bodies. One other opposing prospective was that Dr. Kevorkian was using the procedures in order to get rid of the disabled or the unhealthy.

After talking with my grandmother her point of view was that hospitals won’t make money unless “death is kept alive.”  She believes that if the Death with Dignity Act is passed then more people who are painfully ill will choose to have a physician assisted suicide rather than to die in a hospital with snakes of painkillers entering their body. She also believed that as a human being she should have the right to do what she wants to with her body and her mind. Many others who supported Dr. Kevorkian also believed the same view that my grandmother does. If people take pain killers to numb the body then what is so bad about permanently ending the pain and suffering if the people involved are accepting of the decision to end their life or their loved ones life.

Today only one state has passed the Death with Dignity Act, and that is Oregon. The law took effect in 1997, and in 2007 292 people have died under its provisions. In Oregon only those who are terminally ill and expected to die in the next 6 months, and who are mentally competent adults are allowed to take the life ending medication prescribed by their doctor. Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands also authorize the assistance of physicians in their patient’s suicides.