1. Dr. Jack Kevorkian Dead At 83By: Austin C. HoweDr. Jack Kevorkian is dead at 83,
reports the
Detroit Free Press .
He had been suffering from kidney problems, and a variety of other health conditions
which prompted his release from prison on parole in 2007.Dr. Kevorkian was one of
the first advocates in the United States for the right of doctors to assist in the suicides
of their patients who are terminally ill. Before his time, it was a topic that went
unspoken of, despite countries in Western Europe like the Netherlands already
allowing doctors the right to assist in the willful death of their patients .Dr. Kevorkian
first became concerned with death when he was a medical patient and observed a
cancer patient die. According to him, at the time of the death, the cancer had so eaten
away at the patient that the skin seemed to simply rest on top of the bones like a
cloak .During the 80’s he wrote a series of articles for the German Medicine and
Law journal that expressed his views in support of euthanasia, and revealed a
general fascination of death, such as a series of articles saying that death-row
prisoners should have the right to choose to die by anesthesia so their organs could
be donated to the sick and their bodies be used as cadavers for medical students. In
1990, he assisted in the suicide of his first patient, Janet Adkins, a former teacher
suffering from Alzheimer’s. He was arrested shortly afterwards (he called the police
himself to alert them of the death of Ms. Adkins), but was soon released, starting a
pattern. Over the course of 8 years he claimed to have assisted in the suicides of at
least 130 patients .In 1998, having received a bit of fame and notoriety for his work,
he went farther. Up until then, his patients had all performed the final procedure of
administering lethal drugs themselves, but in the case of Thomas Youk he himself
administered the drugs. And recorded it on camera. And had it aired on
60 Minutes as a part of a special on him and his advocacy .He was arrested and
eventually sentenced to 10-25 years for second-degree murder, but following health
problems was released in 2007 on parole. He stopped assisting in suicides,
becoming a full-time advocate to have laws on assisted suicide changed based on
the 9th amendment’s guarantee of rights not necessarily declared explicitly in the
constitution.
n 2010, he was the subject of a film starring Al Pacino, You Don’t Know Jack,
which was well received, as well a documentary in 2008 about his run for Michigan’s
7 th
Congressional District seat in Congress as an independent. (Helost.)He died in a
Detroit-area hospital, in the presence of his lawyer from the 90’s Geoffery Fieger, also
a close friend, one of Dr. Kevorkian’s only