Jack Kevorkian Will Focus on Prison Reform Over Assisted Suicide

Royal Oak, MI (LifeNews.com) -- Assisted suicide crusader Jack Kevorkian has said in a new interview that he will focus on promoting prison reform and civil rights instead of advocating euthanasia. He says his health has recovered following his prison stay for showing a national television audience a video of him killing a disabled patient.

He served eight years of a 10-25 year prison sentence for the murder of a disabled patient after killing more than 130 people via assisted suicide in Michigan.

Though he is ready to hit the lecture circuit, Kevorkian tells the Detroit News that he has "more important" issues than assisted suicide to discuss.

“I feel good now and have some things to do,” Kevorkian told the newspaper.

“I have a couple of issues bigger than euthanasia, both controversial, that I’d like to get out there if they let me," he said, referring to whether or not the parole board will allow him to travel and speak.

Still, Kevorkian told the News he will also focus on a new tactic in the assisted suicide debate -- saying that he will use the Ninth Amendment to show that even though euthanasia isn't mention as a right in the constitution that court's can't prevent it.

"If it (Ninth Amendment) would be applied the way it was supposed to, I would never have been jailed or have gone to prison," Kevorkian said. "And it would also put an end to any debate over so many issues: Euthanasia and abortion...."

Kevorkian's first speech, planned for the University of Florida, has been postponed until January.

Saying it is worried about security in light of concerns at other college campuses, the university postponed the speech. Kevorkian was slated to speak to UF students on October 11 and receive $50,000 for the talk, as long as his parole officers approved the trip.

After touring (no, I wasn’t an inmate) some federal prisons I am a firm believer that we need to change the system.

All the people who believe that prisons should be hells on earth miss the point: we’re making people worse. If we’re going to reintroduce them into society we can’t be giving them advanced courses in criminality. There are alternatives that still serve as punishment.

Before anybody criticizes me, please state if you have toured or served in prisons, OK?

I haven’t, but... let’s just say a sizable portion of my family is very familiar with the justice system. I completely agree with you. The system as it is now has at least a 40% recidivism rate. No other nation experiences that. And how did we ever let prison behavior/customs seep into the mainstream? I’m talking about the baggy pant hanging so low as to show underwear. I don’t know the answer, but what we have now is corrupt and creating more advanced criminals.

Viacom’s MTV/BET/VH1 pushed gangsterism into the mainstream. Wear your pants baggy correctional “don’t have my size” style and throw some gang signs around. Lie about how many ties “you’ve been sent up” and how many times “you’ve gotten shot”.

They pad their bios with negative things they can brag about. In any other career (even sacking groceries) they would be things that would KEEP you from getting employed. Not so at Viacom’s office of Standards and Practices.

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