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Jack Kevorkian: It Was Never About the Patient’S Best Interest

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Jack Kevorkian: It Was Never About the Patient’S Best Interest 2011 Vol. 25, No. 3 Patients Rights Council Jack Kevorkian: It was never about the patient’s best interest ack Kevorkian now knows death first Kevorkian’s medical career could concern. What mattered most to J hand. On June 3, at the age of 83, he hardly be called successful. He once told Kevorkian was that he had somehow personally experienced the natural dy- a gathering at Washington, DC’s Na- struck a chord, and the attention he so ing process in his hospital room in Royal tional Press Club that “people were just craved would finally be his. Oak, Michigan, as nurses played his frightened to death of me,” and “it was Over time, however, the two major favorite music by Johann Sebastian hopeless to get a position.” [Speech Detroit newspapers began to question Bach over the intercom. His was not an given 10/27/92] In 1989, he even ap- Kevorkian’s “professionalism.” In 1997, induced death, unlike the 130 people— plied for a job as a paramedic and was seven years into his assisted-suicide by his count—whose lives were ended turned down. [Detroit Free Press Maga- campaign, the Detroit Free Press pub- with his “help.” zine, 2/3/91] lished its two-part investigative report Kevorkian had a long history of being As an unemployed pathologist—with on the 47 known deaths at that time. obsessed with death—the deaths of no clinical experience with live patients The paper found that Kevorkian consis- others, that is. His nickname, “Dr. other than during his internship and tently ignored rules and safeguards he, Death,” dates all the way back to 1956 military service in the 1950s— himself, established for “professional” when, as a young intern, he would go Kevorkian switched his attention to assisted-suicide practice. In at least 19 around the hospital photographing the creating suicide machines that sick and cases, the paper wrote, “Kevorkian has eyes of patients as they died. Not long disabled individuals could use to end failed to consult psychiatrists, even after, he wrote a paper advocating sur- their lives under his supervision. Those when dealing with depressed people.” gical experimentation and organ har- who came to him had a broad array of In at least 5 of those cases, “the people vesting on live death-row inmates medical conditions, such as neurologi- who died had histories of depression.” (under anesthesia) since they would be cal illnesses, cancer, dementia, paraly- Moreover, Kevorkian failed “to consult executed anyway. Prisons across the sis, and mental illnesses, yet he had no with pain specialists and other medi- country either ignored or rejected out- formal training in any of those fields of cal experts, even when the need was right his ghoulish proposals. medicine. But that didn’t seem to be a (continued on page 2) Also in this Poll reveals disabled people’s fear of assisted suicide Update poll commissioned by mental to “the way that dis- The assisted-suicide debate A Scope, a leading British abled people are viewed by in the UK has increased in in- Kevorkian: disability organization, found society as a whole.” *Scope tensity this year. At the same A Dark Mirror on Society that 70 percent of disabled NDPP Survey, 2-3/11] time, the government is pro- Wesley J. Smith ·············· 2 people are fearful that chang- Richard Hawkes, Scope’s posing substantial cuts to the ing the law to allow assisted chief executive, said, “Disabled aid many disabled people need No action on Vermont suicide would create pressure people are already worried to live. “Sounds a little like the prescribed-suicide bill ····· 3 on those with disabilities to about people assuming their United States,” blogged Stephen FBI probe shuts down end their lives prematurely. life isn’t worth living or seeing Drake, research analyst for the suicide kit business ······ 3 More than one in three (35%) them as a burden, and are US disability group Not Dead said legalizing the practice genuinely concerned that a Yet. In the UK, “*t+hey’re fight- What family is all about would put pressure on them change in the law could in- ing battles that may be just as Jason Negri ···················· 4 personally to die, and over crease pressure on them to imminent for us within a very half (56%) said allowing as- short time.” *NDY News & News briefs from end their life.” *Scope Press home and abroad ············ 6 sisted suicide would be detri- Release, 5/9/11] Commentary, 6/14/11] ■ Page 2 PRC Update 2011 - Vol. 25, No. 3 Kevorkian: A Dark Mirror on Society by Wesley J. Smith he death of Jack Kevorkian by natural causes has a cer- noted above, he wanted to engage in ghoulish experiments. T tain irony, but it is not surprising. His driving motive was It. Didn’t. Matter. He was fawned over by the media (Time always obsession with death. Indeed, as he described in his invited him as an honored guest to its 75th anniversary gala, book Prescription Medicide, Kevorkian’s overriding purpose and he had carte blanche on 60 Minutes), enjoyed high opin- in his assisted-suicide campaign was pure quackery, e.g., to ion polls, and after his release from prison was transformed obtain a societal license to engage in what he called by sheer revisionism into an eccentric Muppet. He was even “obitiatry,” that is, the right to experiment on the brains and played by Al Pacino in an HBO hagiography. spinal cords of “living human bodies” being euthanized to Kevorkian was disturbingly prophetic. He called for the “pinpoint the exact onset of extinction of an unknown cogni- creation of euthanasia clinics where people could go who tive mechanism that energizes life.” didn’t want to live anymore. They now exist in Switzerland So, now that he is gone, what is Kevorkian’s legacy? and were recently overwhelmingly supported by the voters He assisted the suicides of 130 or so people and lethally of Zurich in an initiative intended to stop what is called injected at least two by his own admission (his first and his “suicide tourism.” Belgian doctors have now explicitly tied last); as a consequence of the latter, he served nearly ten euthanasia and organ harvesting. In the U.S., mobile suicide years in prison for murder. But I think his more important clinics run by Final Exit Network zealots continue unabated place in contemporary history was as a dark mirror that re- despite two prosecutions, as voters in two states legalized flected how powerful the avoidance of suffering has become Kevorkianism as a medical treatment. as a driving force in society, and indeed, how that excuse Time will tell whether Kevorkian will be remembered seems to justify nearly any excess. merely as a kook who captured the temporary zeitgeist of the times, or whether he was a harbinger of a society that, in Thus, while the media continually described him as the the words of Canadian journalist Andrew Coyne, “believes in “retired” doctor who helped “the terminally ill” to commit nothing *and+ can offer no argument, even against death.“ ■ suicide, at least 70 percent of his assisted suicides were not dying, and five weren’t ill at all according to their autopsies. It. Didn’t. Matter. Kevorkian advocated tying assisted suicide Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a legal consultant for the Pa- tients Rights Council, a senior fellow at the Discovery in with organ harvesting, and even stripped the kidneys from Institute, and a consultant to the Center for Bioethics the body of one of his cases, offering them at a press confer- & Culture. His article appeared in National Review ence, “first come, first served.” It. Didn’t. Matter. And as Online on 6/3/11 and is reprinted with his permission. Jack Kevorkian, continued from page 1 clearly indicated.” Another Kevorkian the Free Press, “Raskind told Kevorkian Badger, whose diagnosis of multiple rule—that there must be a 24-hour wait- that Adkins was not competent to make sclerosis was found by Oakland ing period between patients’ final death a life-and-death decision. Kevorkian County’s medical examiner to be requests and their deaths—was also gave her a lethal injection anyway, writ- mistaken; Frank Long, who had a 30- often ignored. According to the investi- ing later that his opinion was based year history of treatment for mental gation, “At least 19 patients died less solely on conversations with Adkins’ illness; Judith Curren, who had im- than 24 hours after meeting Kevorkian husband. *“Suicide Machine, Part 1,” properly been given anti-depression for the first time.” [Emphasis added.] Detroit Free Press, 3/3/97] medication by her own husband; and Roosevelt Dawson, a 21-year-old One of the investigation’s most re- After Kevorkian’s death, the Detroit quadriplegic who was dead in South- vealing findings had to do with Janet News ran an editorial echoing some of field within a few hours of his release Adkins, who had been chosen by the Free Press’s earlier findings and de- from a hospital in Grand Rapids. Kevorkian to be his first “patient.” He bunking Kevorkian’s persistent claims Their deaths indicate he failed to selected her “without ever speaking to that he carefully screened and coun- double-check the medical histories her, only with her husband.” Kevorkian seled patients before ever agreeing to of those who came to him, or simply also spoke with her doctor, Dr. Murray help them die: disregarded them. [Detroit News Raskind, who had been treating Adkins That is simply not true. Those whose Editorial, 6/4/11] in Seattle for Alzheimer’s.
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