Kevorkian deserves our praise and respect

Submitted by charlie.collins on Wed, 05/30/2007 - 09:45

Tagged:

Politics

I can decide when my dog is in enough pain to give him drugs to euthanize him, but where I live, and in all but a single US state, I am not permitted to make the same decision for myself. That fact is ludicrous, but nonetheless true. Assisted suicide advocate and pioneer Jack Kevorkian gets out of prison soon, thankfully. He was a pioneer in advocating for physician assisted euthanasia, and was severely persecuted by a perverse legal and logical system for his efforts. A system that is permeated by a so called religious culture that advocates capital punishment, and war, yet is often adamantly opposed to stem cell research, and euthanasia - regardless of the circumstances (the entire "culture of life" is a hugely hypocritical fiasco). I for one thank Dr. Kevorkian for shining the light on the issue. And, though I am not optimistic (in the short term anyway), I still hope more US states will wake up and change their policies with regard to this issue.

Comments

The Kevorkian Myth

Submitted by papijoe (not verified) on Wed, 05/30/2007 - 15:44.

I challenge you to learn a bit more about this man you have glorified as a pioneer. This Wesley Smith article is short but cuts to the chase: Kevorkian was a twisted ghoul who was obsessed with experimenting on living conscious subjects as they died. If you still have any doubts, take a look at some of his paintings. Each one speaks volumes about his character

Give me a break. You pull

Submitted by atrox (not verified) on Thu, 05/31/2007 - 12:14.

Give me a break. You pull out some shit by Wesley J. Smith, and then to quell any "doubts" you say "look at his paintings."? WTF? Come on. A Discovery Institute guy and paintings? I "challenge" you to learn a little bit more about being objective in general. Despite all that distraction, your problem with Kevorkian was he wanted to "experiment on living conscious subjects as they died."? So you have no issue with the actual point of the posting, and Kevorkian's work in general, physician assisted suicide should be legal. Rather, your issue is the way that Kevorkian allegedly performed his assisted suicides, or some other motive he had for doing it besides the rights of the patient at hand? Look, I have no idea what the validity of the Kevorkian "research as they died" claims are. However, I take the word of a Discovery Institute stooge about as far as I can throw anyone that doesn't "believe" in evolution (belief being a key word there, not everything is a fucking debate, it's not all about belief). The greater praise for Kevorkian though, was for his very real and very public stance that physician assisted suicide should not be a crime, in that sense, he sure as hell was a pioneer.

atrox, your response to

Submitted by seb (not verified) on Fri, 06/01/2007 - 18:27.

atrox, your response to papijoe was truly amazing. It summed up perfectly the fallacious reasoning most opponents to Kevorkian hold, namely their inability to analyze the issue objectively. It shocks me to think that he references a person who came up with this alter ego of Kevorkian and uses it as an accepted truth. Anyone calling him a serial killer is truly misguided and has an extremely close-minded on the issue of death. Categorizing a man who, regardless of his actual intentions, fulfills the final wishes of people without bringing harm to anyone else, with serial killers is huge mistake. I'm not going to go deeper into the obvious differences of a serial killer and Kevorkian but anyone calling him a monster or horrible person must be encouraged to do so through a highly personal set of beliefs which don't consider the freedom of each individual to be able to have their own set of personal beliefs. That is, for some reason, they believe that their convictions are superior and should be the ones that dictate legislation.

"Between the Dying and the

Submitted by trinityfire (not verified) on Tue, 06/05/2007 - 09:39.

"Between the Dying and the Dead", Co-Authored by Harry Wylie and Neil Nichols Highly recommended for anyone who wants to claim they understand Dr. Kevorkian, his methods, and his research. This is a well written strait to the point perspective of Dr. Kevorkian and all his quirks (or ghoulishness, if you will). Even more than that, it gives you a really good understanding of his patients and their families burdens. It also describes his research on those people he studied as they died and why he did so... as well as blood transfusion research he did for the military and many other medical breakthroughs that he is lesser known for. Please at least try to learn about someone (from somewhere other than the media) before bashing them for standing up for they they believe is true and good.... no matter how strangely they may handle themselves.