San Diego News
The History of a Legend - Dr. Jack Kevorkian AKA Dr Death Dies at 83
Dr. Jack Kevorkian died early this morning, at the age of 83. He passed away all by himself, not by any devices he created to help the process along. Known as Dr. Death, the Michigan pathologist died eight days after his 83rd birthday, at the Beaumont Hospital in Michigan, from pneumonia and a kidney-related ailment. He’s had problems with his kidneys for years, and was in the hospital a month earlier. This time, he suffered a pulmonary thrombosis, when a blood clot from his leg ended up lodged in his heart. His niece was by his side, and reports are that he died peacefully and didn’t feel a thing.
The music of Bach, Kevorkian’s favorite, was put on the intercom so he could hear it as he was dying, his attorney said. It’s a fitting way to go, for the man who helped terminally ill patients die without feeling a thing.
He graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1952, and in the early ‘80s, wrote a series of articles for a German periodical about his take on euthanasia. It wasn’t until the late ‘80s when Kevorkian started advertising in Detroit newspapers as a physician consultant for “death counseling.”
In 1990, he did his first public assisted suicide for Janet Adkins. She was an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s. He was charged with murder, but those charges didn’t stick since Michigan didn’t have laws regarding medically assisted suicide. The following year, the State of Michigan revoked his medical license. His response to this? He spent the decade helping 130 terminally ill people take their lives.
Kevorkian was convicted on second-degree murder charges in 1999, from the death of a patient who suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease and it really brought the euthanasia debate out like it never had been before (the fact that it was on TV sure helped add to the controversy). When people would tell Kevorkian that doctors are supposed to help keep patients alive, he’d often respond that a physician has the job of trying to help a suffering patient.
He was also outspoken about the states where assisted suicide is legal. He claimed it wasn’t being done right, and that you shouldn’t have to be terminal in order to qualify. It’s a great point, when you think about somebody that might not be terminal, but has a condition that has them suffering a great deal of pain daily. That person might live a miserable life for another eight years of agonizing pain. Should we try to keep this person alive in a condition in which they’re miserable?
People against euthanasia bring up the fact that somebody going through a bout of depression or some pain that might go away – might take drastic measures – when they might not be necessary. In 1998, Kevorkian appeared on 60 Minutes. Mike Wallace said of all the interviews he did, none had a greater impact than that one. The assisted suicide he showed caused a national outcry, and led to his conviction the following year. I was a bit more creeped out when they showed his very well done but morbid oil paintings. It looked like Edgar Allan Poe meets Salvador Dali, with lots of decapitated people.
In 2008 Kevorkian ran for Congress in Michigan. He didn’t win. It was a year earlier that he was paroled on his 10-to-25 year prison sentence for second-degree murder. It’s bizarre that he was released on the condition that he wouldn’t kill anybody else.
In 2010, Barry Levinson (Rain Man) did the made-for-TV movie, You Don’t Know Jack which starred Al Pacino as Kevorkian, and John Goodman as Neal Nicol. It was nominated for 15 Emmy’s, and won two.
Locally, Jack Kevorkians name was brought up when a woman in Santee was arrested May 25 for selling suicide kits. What’s even more odd about the arrest of Sharlotte Hydorn, is that the woman is 91. The FBI raided her home and gathered evidence as part of an ongoing investigation. She had a company called The Gladd Group, which sold kits that contained a customized plastic bag, medical tubing, instructions on how to use them, and a book about assisted suicide. The bag gets hooked up to a helium tank, which I’m guessing doesn’t come with the kit, since it sold for $60. It was a decent business; they reportedly pulled in almost $100,000 last year alone. In an interview by the Union-Tribune last month, she explained the kits are meant to be used by terminally ill people.
The difference with Kevorkian is – he not only assisted – but made sure the person had a condition that warranted suicide. If you send these out to anybody that orders them, you have no control over who uses them (or if they could be used to murder somebody else, in order to make it look like suicide).
Oregon voted to crack down on companies selling items that can be used as aids for suicide, after Eugene State Sen. Floyd Prozanski read about the suicide of a guy whose mother and father are both U.S. district court judges Nick Klonoski had used one of Hydorn’s kits, which he purchased online. Klonoski’s family statement at a Senate hearing, was that their son wasn’t terminally ill.
