Posted on 01/18/2008 7:40:41 AM PST by NYer
Gainesville, FL (AHN) - Dr. Jack Kevorkian surprised a crowd of over 5,000 people at the University of Florida (UF) Tuesday night when he unleashed an attack on the "made up mythology of religion," and said that while in medical school he never took the Hippocratic Oath.
Kevorkian, 79, spent his time in Gainesville meeting with the UF ACCENT Speakers Bureau and speaking with students at a question-and-answer session ahead of his sold-out speech at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center, Tuesday evening. Throughout the day though, Kevorkian's theme remained focused on the often overlooked 9th Amendment and the "terrible crisis" that is gripping the nation.
Aside from what some students called a "rambling tirade on law," Kevorkian did take some time to address the issue that most had come to hear; physician-assisted suicide. Kevorkian said he disagreed with an Oregon law that mandated a patient must take the suicidal medicine himself. Kevorkian has long maintained that suicide must be treated as a medical procedure, with the direct intervention of a physician, who will make sure there is an immediate and painless death.
"It's got to be a medical service. That's the only way to control it... It must be a medical service, so the obstacle is the [American Medical Association]. All you have to do is declare it to be a medical service, legitimately, and they'll take care of all the rest of it, just like they do with every medical procedure. You can't dictate medical procedures by law; they change all the time; research changes."
"My aim was not to cause death, that's crazy. My aim was to end suffering." Kevorkian cited modern examples of physician-assisted suicides, including the medically-involved deaths of author Mark Twain, psychologist Sigmund Freud and British King George V.
Yet from there, Kevorkian digressed into an attack on Catholic doctors, the Hippocratic oath and religion. Kevorkian said that the Hippocratic oath "wasn't discussed in medical school, and our class never took the oath. It isn't a medical oath; you pledge allegiance to all the gods and goddess, the pagan gods and goddesses of Greeks - what sense is that today?" He added that the Hippocratic oath was the byproduct of a "secret, small Pythagorean sect" that was the only group to oppose the ancient tradition of a physician helping a terminally ill patient end his life.
"The only oath we have, the only ethics we have in medicine are religious ethics" and "religion is nothing more than a made-up mythology [and] the basis of religion is fear."
"A doctor limited by dogma isn't a real physician; he should have been a priest," Kevorkian said. "They think life's sacred... I don't feel sacred, frankly. I've got a life and I don't feel sacred."
Overall, students felt Kevorkian should have spent more time talking about physician-assisted suicide, the issue that brought him to trial five times in the 1990's and finally led to his conviction in 1999. "It's good to hear his point of view," UF undergraduate student Kristen Perry said. "I don't know if i would go so far as to say that euthanasia should be legalized, but I think if it is, he's definitely right about how we should go about doing it."
Another issue ahead of the speech was protests. While local activist groups like the UF on-campus branch of the Pro Life Alliance organization claimed almost a hundred demonstrators would show up, AHN found a meager handful of bused-in retirees and high school students on hand for the event. A graphic banner equating abortion to physician-assisted suicide was silently put up while bland signs saying "DEATH isn't welcome here" were handed out to a handful of demonstrators who braved 40-degree weather to get their message out.
Bobby Schindler, brother of the late Terri Schiavo, was also scheduled to make an appearance amid the tight security the university arranged for the event. However, despite starting a petition to persuade UF to rescind its offer to Kevorkian and speaking out against the speech to several pro-life groups, Schindler was an inexplicable no-show on Tuesday.
Local and university police were on hand, but the protesters gathered without even a chant and went largely unnoticed by a sold-out crowd that began lining up hours before the event. In the end, it was Kevorkian's radical comments on race, religion and the state of the Union that became the bombshell.
Mr. Kevorkian is the Brian Warner of the medical profession. While Brian plays a celebrity self-name Marilyn Manson and takes glee from causing outrage, so does celebrity known as Dr. Death.
He’s made a cottage industry of himself. Speaking enragements, grotesque paintings, etc. Hope his victims are happy they made him richer by succumbing to his contraption.
I would think that any early release would require some remorse and contrition over what you’d done to get locked up.
My dad was left a large dose of morphine, which my step-sister kept in the fridge. He took a little at a time. However, the entire bottle would have killed him. The hospice nurse came everyday, so the large amount was unnecessary. We all knew why it was there. In fact, I talked about it so that we were not fooling ourselves.
If your religion precludes you from doing this, even faced with debilitating pain, then God be with you, but don't codify your believes and prevent the rest of us from using the option.
Kevorkian is doing a needed service and he has placed himself on the line for it.
Plus all of those gift certificates he has to honor.
The Michigan jury found Kevorkian guilty of second-degree homicide. It was proven that he had directly killed a person because Thomas Youk was not physically able to kill himself. The judge sentenced Kevorkian to serve a 10-25 year prison sentence and told him: “You were on bond to another judge when you committed this offense, you were not licensed to practice medicine when you committed this offense and you hadn’t been licensed for eight years. And you had the audacity to go on national television, show the world what you did and dare the legal system to stop you. Well, sir, consider yourself stopped.”
Has he announced his suicide plans yet?
His killing of all those helpless people was not for humanitarian purposes but rather to satisfy his own sick and twisted curiosity.
Throw him back in prison.
Kevorkian would have it where those who do not really want to die (as in those sad cases in the Netherlands) are pressured into bumping themselves off anyway.
Pain can get out of control but it can still be fought. An intentional fatal dose of morphine is never the solution.
Either way. the facts of the case does not change my position. If you want to address my position and not the facts of the case or the doctor's license, then have at it.
He’s terminal but his is a “quality” life still.
Just refuting your praise of Jack Kevorkian.
The larger issue, is do you believe a person has a right to commit suicide? If not, what punishment should the government enact for your decision?
Some day, the government will not play a role in enforcing whay some consider sins alone, or interfere with someone's personal freedoms on personal issues.
It is not your decision to kill another person who is suffering.
Suicide is against the law in most of the civilized world. The law is gentle when the suicide attempt fails and help is usually given.
The problem occurs when they can't make it, as we have seen in cases recently. Just to create another dissonance for you. If I am the decision maker delegated in an advanced medical directive and I'm asked whether or not to "pull the plug" on another person, who's decision is it to do so?
No one has the “right” to end his own life. That is law and it is morality. If you desire to change the law then you have the right to lobby for it. But you’ll find yourself in strange company.
My father was a neurosurgeon and he had the backbone to speak his mind. He was on the side of the INTRINSIC VALUE of life.
We have examples of how others delegate the decision making. You can characterize the hospital procedures all you want, but it's ending the person's life. And in some cases as explained by a third party. Are you proposing no removal from life sustaining equipment because you have an "intrinsic value"" of life?
If you father doesn't want to participate, he should also have that right. I don't believe doctors should be forced to perform abortions. In fact, I oppose abortions because the victim clearly is not making the decision. But the law let's doctors perform the abortion and end the life.
explained = decided
It appears that what you really want is someone to argue with. Nothing more, nothing less.
The Dr. Death issue was not about one person committing suicide or punching his own ticket or whatever. It was about Dr. Death killing people and calling it a service. That friend, is MURDER.
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