Dr. Kevorkian, Mudering in the Name of Mercy Essays

Once people are diagnosed to be terminally-ill, they only have a certain amount of time to live, and they know that as their disease progresses that they will only get worse and worse and they will eventually lose themselves. These people should have a choice as of whether they want to live out those dreadful days that lie ahead of them, or to simply end their lives peacefully, without any pain. Physician- Assisted Suicide or Euthanasia allows people to make the decision. Although the end-result of both procedures is the same, the technique differs slightly. In Physician- Assisted Suicide, the physician injects the lethal substances, and with Euthanasia, the doctor only provides a lethal amount of a drug to the patient and they ingest it themselves. Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia should be legalized as a federal law so that the patients have the right to decide whether they would like to end their lives when in a terminally-ill state.

Suicide is one person’s personal decision; physician-assisted suicide is a patient who is not capable of carrying the task out themselves asking a physician for access to lethal medication. What people may fail to see however is that the physician is not the only healthcare personnel involved; it may include, but is not limited to, a physician, nurse, and pharmacist. This may conflict with the healthcare worker’s own morals and there are cases in which the patient suffers from depression, or the patient is not receiving proper palliative care. Allowing physician-assisted suicide causes the physician to become entangled in an ethical and moral discrepancy and has too many other issues surrounding it for it to be legal.

Imagine a cancer patient on a short rode to death. The pain this patient is experiencing is unreal and unimaginable to most. The pain medicine that can be used does little to take the agony away. The doctors can put the patient in an induced coma, but what kind of living is that? It is not living. The patient does not want to go on. Is it so wrong to ask for a way out? With less than six months to live, the patient’s hope is gone. Many argue that euthanasia is not ethical, but is it really ethical to let someone live in constant, horrifying pain and agony? While in some cases having the right to die might result in patients giving up on life, physician-assisted suicide should be legalized in all fifty states for terminally ill patients with worsening or unbearable pain.

After talks with her husband, sons, minister, and local doctors; Janet Adkins decided she didn¹t want to undergo the sustained mental deterioration that Alzheimer¹s Disease caused (Uhlman 111). She began to realize she had the disease when she started forgetting songs and failed to recognize notes as she played the piano (Filene 188). ³She read in Newsweek about Dr. Jack Kevorkian and his ŒMercitron¹ machine, then saw him on the ŒDonahue¹ Television show² (Filene 188). With her husband¹s consent but objections by sons and doctors, she telephoned him to arrange to kill herself (Filene 188). She still had a life expectancy of at least ten years with the illness, but she wished to die. She wanted to die before the disease robbed her of her

Patient assisted suicide, death with dignity, euthanasia or patient assisted death; whichever one that is used, they all mean the same tragic thing. The life of another human being is more than what comes to eye. For years now, everyone has been arguing whether physicians have the right to assist with patient assisted death. The man who started this epidemic was known as Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Kevorkian was a pathologist who assisted the acute and critically ill with ending his or her life. After Kevorkian spent years battling the legality of his actions with the courts, he ended up spending eight years in prison. Today, there are only 7 locations that allow physicians to do this: Oregon, Washington, Vermont, California, Montana, Colorado, and Washington DC. At the start of this whole situation, doctors would attempt to use very high dosages of analgesic, pain relieving medication, to end a patients life; however, that ended very quickly. Shortly after that time, doctors would use the same drugs administered for lethal injections. Typically a three step process: the first shot induces unconsciousness, the second shot causes muscle paralysis and respiratory arrest, and the final shot causes cardiac arrest, which ceases heart contractions. Currently, doctors use a drug called

Physician-assisted suicide is “the voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician. Physician-assisted suicide is the practice of providing a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with the primary intention of ending his or her own life” (MedicineNet.com, 2004). Many times this ethical issue arises when a terminally-ill patient with and incurable illness, whom is given little time to live, usually less than six-months, has requested a physician’s assistance in terminating one’s life. This practice with the terminally ill is known as euthanasia. Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia is a controversial topic

Ever since Dr. Kevorkian or “Doctor Death” drove his car around the united states assisting over 40 patients to take the own lives physician aid in dying has been a topic which has sparked controversy (DiManno). Although his actions did receive large amounts of negative feed back it did lead much of the population to the question of whether or not it should be legal for an individual to have medical assistance to take their life in certain situations such as terminal illness or chronic physical pain. Through the years this idea has adopted the name physician aid in dying. Personally I believe that we should, because when it comes to our body we should have 100% control over what we choose to do with it. Even if that is choosing to take our own life in times of great physical pain and suffering. Although physician aid in dying is already legal in five states, I believe that it should be legal in the remainder of the states in the United States. While I know that the thought of a doctor prescribing a lethal dosage of a medication to help a patient to take their life can be disturbing to some people it should not be illegal. If that were the case eventually it could be illegal to get tattoos or have hair cuts that may be disturbing to some people. The way I see it is that if PAD is really what someone wants it should be an option to them no matter what state they live in. The thought of someone suffering from a

Physician-assisted suicide is the voluntary termination of one 's own life by administering a lethal substance with assistance of a physician. Physician-assisted suicide is legal in five U.S. states. It is an option given to individuals by state law in Oregon, Vermont, Washington and California. It is an option given to individuals in Montana via court decision. Individuals must have a terminal illness as well as a prognosis of six months or less to live. Physicians cannot be prosecuted for prescribing medications to speed up the process of death. Since 1992, efforts to legalize the practice have failed in California, Michigan, Maine, and most recently, in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, 41 states have passed laws making it a crime to assist in a suicide. Everyone has the right to choose how they live or die. Many terminally ill patients who are in the final stages of their lives have requested doctors to aid them in exercising active euthanasia. It is sad to realize that these people are in great agony and that the only hope of bringing that agony to an end is through assisted suicide. Many different conditions are set in whether someone is eligible for assisted suicide because sometimes even with a little help they can change their mind about suicide. Maybe not exactly when they want to make such decision but if it gets to the point that death is the only option, they should have the right to fulfill their wish.

     On April 13, 1999, the most recognized physician performing assisted suicide, Dr, Jack Kevorkian, was sentenced to ten to twenty-five years in prison for second degree murder and three to seven years for delivery of a controlled substance. Assisted suicide happens when a person commits suicide with the help of someone else. Physician assisted suicide is generally pain free and, as some would say, the most peaceful way to die. Should it be the right of terminally ill patients to decide if they want to seek out physician assisted suicide to end their intolerable pain, or should it be up to the courts?

Physician Assisted Suicide is not just an easy way out; but a dignified way to end their suffering. It is within the patient’s rights to decide if they want to live or die and how they follow through with this act. In 2006, Attorney General John Ashcroft went to court against the state of Oregon saying that the Death with Dignity Act violated the Controlled Substance Act because it is not a “legitimate reason” for medication (Yeh, 2006). Aschcroft wanted to revoke all licenses for doctors who participate in PAS and those who grant immunity to physicians participating. The court ruled against Ashcroft 6-3, reporting allowing physicians to prescribe a lethal dose (Wisconsin Right to Life, n.d.). Jack Kevorkian, also known as Dr. Death, is a

Doctor Jack Kevorkian was the doctor that started the movement that gave citizens the opportunity to no longer suffer with terminal illnesses. Kevorkian was born in Michigan and went to University of Michigan Medical School, where he specialized in pathology. Pathology is the branch of medicine that is concerned with the causes of death and disease where doctors perform autopsies (Langwith 1). While other doctors helped their patients secretively, Kevorkian was not a doctor who secretly helped his patients. Kevorkian started advertising “… in the Detroit newspapers in 1987 as a physician consultant for ‘death counseling’” (Langwith 1). This allowed more people who needed help to get the opportunity to find a doctor that was willing to help and ask the questions necessary. Langwith says that, “In 1990, Janet Adkins, flipped the switch on the mercitron killing machine,

While many define euthanasia as physician-assisted suicide with “informed and voluntary consent” or “a gentle and easy death,” (80) others view it in a more demeaning light, but with reasonable concerns. From its beginning rooted in the fifteenth century to the recent efforts for its legalization, the practice of euthanasia has become a very controversial issue. In J Donald Boudreau’s commentary, “Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia,” he argues against legalizing euthanasia because it would challenge the traditional medical values, ideals, and instruction of healing.

Jack Kevorkian, or Doctor Death, was notoriously known for facilitating a suicide machine to patients who sought to end their lives but were not able to do so without assistance. In 1968 Kevorkian wrote, “‘It’s time for a society obsessed with planned birth to consider diverting some of its attention and energy from an overriding concern with longevity of life at all costs, to the snowballing need for a rational stance on planned death’” (Kevorkian, 2011, p. 1). He was careful not to practice active euthanasia, which would mean actively injecting patients with a lethal dose. This would lead to Kevorkian being charged with murder. Instead, he assisted terminally ill patients in committing suicide by providing them with the means to carry out their plans. The first means included delivering carbon monoxide via a mask that would lead to hypoxia, or deceased oxygen getting to the tissues, which

Physicians face an ethical dilemma when confronting their patients who are suffering. Many have to choose between abiding by the law or ignoring the law and acting on their own beliefs by assisting in a patient’s suicide. Dr. Jack Kevorkian is certainly one doctor who has taken the illegal route in assisting in many of his patients suicides. In “Killer Doc,” William F. Buckley provides a brief overview of the case and informs his audience of the shocking incidents of Kevorkian’s performed euthanasia on Thomas Youk. In “Offering a Helping Hand to those Who Long to Die,” Mark Nichols compares the famous euthanasia doctors, Dr. Kevorkian and Austrailia’s Dr. Philip Nitschke.

By the time 1990 rolled around it became apparent through public polls that over 50 percent of public supported some kind of physician-assisted suicide. Jack Kevorkian performed an assisted suicide on Janet Adkins, a 45-year-old Alzheimer’s patient. Janet was an active member of the Hemlock Society, a group in favor of