Posted on 07/31/2006 4:17:24 PM PDT by wagglebee
Coldwater, MI (LifeNews.com) -- Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm ordered state officials to carry out a medical examination on jailed assisted suicide crusader Jack Kevorkian. The exam comes after the Michigan Parole Board recently turned down another request to commute his sentence.
While Kevorkian and his attorney claim he has less than six months to live, the board said an independent doctor couldn't certify that.
Wanting a second opinion, Granholm wants to confirm whether the former pathologist is near death or not.
"The governor is not in the business of second-guessing our courts, but she has commuted sentences of prisoners with life-threatening conditions," Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd told the Associated Press.
Boyd indicated the examination had been conducted but the results had not yet been released. She indicated that Granholm had commuted the sentences of seven prisoners who were terminally ill at the time.
Corrections Department spokesman Russ Marlan indicated prisoners can only be granted a medical release if doctors determine they have less than a year to live. A parole board health review determined that wasn't the case but Marlan did not release more details on it.
The 78 year-old Kevorkian suffers from hepatitis C, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.
Kevorkian was sentenced in 1999 to a 10- to 25-year sentence after showing a videotape of him euthanizing Thomas Youk, who was in the latter stages of Lou Gehrig's disease. He has served seven years of the sentence.
He is not officially eligible for parole until 2007.
Assisted suicide is not legal in Michigan and Kevorkian would not be able to avail himself of the method of death he used to kill the more than 150 people he claims to have aided in ending their lives.
He said in a recent interview he has second thoughts about the more than 150 people he claimed to have killed through assisted suicide. He now says he should have lobbied to legalized the practice instead.
Kevorkian told the Los Angeles Times in an interview he should have "worked for a change in the law instead" of using assisted suicide to kill patients.
In a previous interview with MSNBC, Kevorkian said he would not break the law but would lobby to legalize assisted suicide throughout the country.
"I have not changed my views on assisted suicide, but I believe it should be performed legally, and I would do whatever my health permits regarding petitions, speeches, lobbying and writing in support of legalization," he told the Times.
Kevorkian said his spirits are in "fair" condition and that he suffers from depression. He indicated he no longer has the strength to read and write and spends most of his time on his prison bed.
Michigan authors and Kevorkian friends Neal Nicol and Harry Wylie say they have been helping Kevorkian to prepare a 300-page manuscript, tentatively titled "The Life of Dr. Death." Kevorkian has been shopping it around to publishers.
Oscar-winning director Barbara Kopple and producer Steve Jones plan to begin filming a movie version in Michigan later this year.
Jones says Oscar winner Ben Kingsley would head the short list of people he would like to play the imprisoned coroner. Kingsley is a three time Oscar nominee who won the award for best actor in 1982 for his role in the film Gandhi.
Here we go
There is no need for that kind of language. Please watch your conduct.
I stand corrected -- in my mind Youk requested it, but Kevorkian crossed a very thin, but important, technical line. And Kevorkian is paying for his lapse in judgement.
But admit it, you think the State has the right to keep people from ending their own life.
The vitrol at Kevorkian on this thread tells me so.
The Nanny Staters will all crowd in here, right quick.
We have one hyperbolic statement already.
I agree he should serve his sentence. I have a feeling that he will be burning in Hell soon; but in the meantime, he should be afforded the human dignity that he denied others.
Other than Youk, they comitted suicide. And the courts agreed with me. The definition of Felony murder is conviction. In fact, had he not been convicted of Youk, YOU would be guilty of libel.
If you saw someone in a vehicle burning to death, screaming at the top of their lungs in agony and you had a gun, would you kill them? Or would you reaffirm your culture of life and let them die in long, painful agony?
No, the definition of a CONVICTED felony murderer is a conviction. By your distorted logic Adolf Hitler is innocent of genocide and anyone who says otherwise is guilty of libel.
No, I would want them to receive medical care. If they had an advance medical directive asking for no extraordinary measures, I would want them to be as comfortable as possible. I would not take proactive measures to end their life.
He was tried and convicted after his death.
I am telling you a legal fact: Falsely ccusing someone of a crime is libel.
You can try to change the meaning of things all you want (a standard for you Nanny Staters). But I for one will stay with the legal definitions.
Please explain to me how a warped man like Kevorkian has any right to be involved in that situation at all.
Screaming in agony inside a burning car where they can't be reached.
Medical care isn't going to happen. What do you do?
Please provide a link for the Nuremburg transcripts where Hitler was tried and convicted.
People who want to end their own lives will find a way. He found a gentler way.
What business is it of anyone how someone ends their life? Why is the state involved at all?
His regime was.
Please quit playing word games. Admit you are a Nanny Stater and let's move on.
What makes you think he is being denied that?
If not wanting to legalize murder makes me a "nanny stater" than so be it.
Even abortions?
NOW, is that you?
I don't think he is being denied medical care.
What is your point? You want him released to die outside prison? If so, why?
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