Posted on 05/26/2007 5:27:38 PM PDT by Baladas
LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- For nearly a decade, Dr. Jack Kevorkian waged a defiant campaign to help other people kill themselves.
The retired pathologist left bodies at hospital emergency rooms and motels and videotaped a death that was broadcast on CBS' "60 Minutes." His actions prompted battles over assisted suicide in many states.
But as he prepares to leave prison June 1 after serving more than eight years of a 10- to 25-year sentence in the death of a Michigan man, Kevorkian will find that there's still only one state that has a law allowing physician-assisted suicide - Oregon.
Experts say that's because abortion opponents, Catholic leaders, advocates for the disabled and often doctors have fought the efforts of other states to follow the lead of Oregon, where the law took effect in late 1997.
Opponents defeated a measure in Vermont this year and are fighting similar efforts in California. Bills have failed in recent years in Hawaii, Wisconsin and Washington state, and ballot measures were defeated earlier by voters in Washington, California, Michigan and Maine.
Kevorkian's release could spur another round of efforts, if only to prevent anyone else from following his example.
"One of the driving forces of the (Oregon) law was to prevent the Jack Kevorkians from happening," said Kate Davenport, a communications specialist at the Death with Dignity National Center in Portland, Ore., which defended Oregon's law against challenges.
"It wasn't well regulated or sane," she said. "There were just too many potential pitfalls."
Kevorkian, 79, was criticized even by assisted suicide supporters because of his unconventional practices.
He used a machine he'd invented to administer fatal drugs and dropped off bodies at hospital emergency rooms or coroner's offices, or left them to be discovered in the motel rooms where he often met those who wanted his help.
At the time, some doctors didn't want to give dying patients too much pain medication, fearing they'd be accused of hastening death.
Oregon law allows only terminally ill, mentally competent adults who can self-administer the medication to ask a physician to prescribe life-ending drugs, and they must make that request once in writing and twice orally.
Oregon's experience shows that only a tiny percentage of people will ever choose to quicken their death, said Sidney Wanzer, a retired Massachusetts doctor who has been a leader in the right-to-die movement.
From the time the law took effect in 1997 until the end of last year, 292 people asked their doctors to prescribe the drugs they would need to end their lives, an average of just over 30 a year. Most of the 46 people who used the process last year had cancer, and their median age was 74, according to a state report.
Experts say the attention on assisted suicide has helped raise awareness caring for the terminally ill.
"End-of-life care has increased dramatically" in Oregon with more hospice referrals and better pain management, says Valerie Vollmar, a professor at Oregon's Willamette University College of Law who writes extensively on physician-assisted death.
Opponents and supporters of physician-assisted death say more needs to be done to offer hospice care and pain treatment for those who are dying and suffering from debilitating pain.
"The solution here is not to kill people who are getting inadequate pain management, but to remove barriers to adequate pain management," said Burke Balch, director of the Powell Center for Medical Ethics at the National Right to Life Committee, which opposes assisted suicide.
"We need to come up with better solutions to human suffering and human need," Balch said.
More end-of-life care is needed, but doctors should have a right to assist those who ask for their help in dying, Wanzer said.
"There are a handful of patients who have the best of care, everything has been done right, but they still suffer. And it's this person I think should have the right to say, `This is not working and I want to die sooner,'" Wanzer said.
Kevorkian has promised he'll never again advise or counsel anyone about assisted suicide once he's out of prison. But his attorney, Mayer Morganroth, said Kevorkian isn't going to stop pushing for more laws allowing it.
The state wants to go after money that Kevorkian makes following his release to help cover the cost of his incarceration. Morganroth has said his client has been offered as much as $100,000 to speak. Many of those speeches are expected to be on assisted suicide.
"It's got to be legalized," Kevorkian said in a phone interview from prison aired by a Detroit TV station on Monday. "I'll work to have it legalized. But I won't break any laws doing it."
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
“He’ll be out June 1. The culture of death marches on, but I thought the Angel of Death was older than 79?”
Most of the people who would do this are people who will vote Dem if they live any longer, anyway.
Does it make me a bad man to point that out?
"We need to come up with better solutions to human suffering and human need," Balch said.
Wow, what a deeply informative thought. Really useful information.
Wouldn't you love to be stuck on a raft with this clown -- "Uh. We need to come up with a way to be rescued somehow...."
Thanks, idiot. You can shut up now.
I always thought he was a crazy sociopath.
The same SeeBS that refused to air the video of Nick Berg being murdered by radical Islamic terrorists.
They don't care about "sensitivity" they care about political issues and how to frame them.
That's too kind IMO. He served 8 yrs. for offing pathetic, depressed people and couldn't be bothered to make certain they were terminal. That's assuming you believe what he said about some of his victims wanting him to put them out of their misery. It won't surprise me to see him return to his former "work" if he's not too feeble to carry on.
I came to think that what he was doing was "sex" for him. He was [is] that creepy.
Why doesn’t he just off himself?
‘Jack the Dripper”
Problem was that a lot of GOPers supported executing Terri Schiavo.
Maybe Kervorkian can team up with Mike Schiavo
I heard he was afraid.
If you have never seen the painting he has done... well they explain a lot.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kevorkian/aboutk/art/
more likely, felos
Most of the pro-euthenasia people hate Kevorkian, too much of a circus freak, doesn’t actually respect the core of the movement he just likes watching people die. Some of them will be very quietly dancing jigs when he goes.
Also, why are people trying to get “doctor-assisted suicide” made legal? I figure that anyone who really wants to off him- or herself who is not able to figure out a way to do it is pretty stupid. Oh, yes, and why not “plumber-assisted suicide”? You know, the guy comes up and bashes your head in with a steel pipe. It’s over fast and pretty much painless after the first two hits.
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