Jack Kevorkian Assisted Suicide Case Study

“A serial mercy killer” (The Right To Die, 80). This is what some would define what Kevorkian did. Kevorkian, however does not feel this way. He performs his acts for the greater good in his eyes. However, he never hesitated to try any other treatments that could result in the patient’s improved health, whether it be antibiotics, or even experimental drug maintenance programs (The Right To Die, 82). He feels that medically assisted suicide is an essential option to those that are incurable and dying (The Right To Die, 83). Kevorkian’s main concern for his terminal patients was their comfort and confidence in their decision. He explains the death his patient’s experienced as being “like a painless heart attack in a deep sleep”(The Right To Die,

One of the most controversial end-of-life decisions is “physician-assisted suicide” (PAS). This method of suicide involves a physician providing a patient, at his or her own request, with a lethal dose of medication, which the patient self-administers. The ethical acceptability and the desirability of legalization of this practice both continue to cause controversy (Raus, Sterckx, Mortier 1). Vaco v. Quill and Washington v. Glucksberg were landmark decisions on the issue of physician-assisted suicide and a supposed Constitutional right to commit suicide with another's assistance. In Washingotn v. Glucksberg, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the state of Washington's ban on physician-assisted suicide was not unconstitutional.

The process of deciding when a terminally ill patient should die lies within the patient, family members, and the

He had an abiding interest in helping people die painlessly. He was the perfect person to carry out Janet¹s wishes (Larson 229).

Jack Kevorkian was a doctor who assisted terminally ill patients to commit suicide. He believed that they had the right to die in an appropriate way; to die with dignity. He therefore invented a machine (called thanatron—a Greek word for death machine) which could take away his patients’ lives painlessly and efficiently, all they had to do was to push a button and their lives would be ended by either deadly injection or carbon monoxide poisoning. There had been at least one hundred patients who tried and died in this method. Dr. Kevorkian was charged several times with murder in these deaths. Lucky for him, a judge dismissed one of his charges because there was no evidence of murder. Jury did not find him guilty either. Nevertheless, he

Gonzales v. Oregon was a case about the Death with Dignity Act passed in Oregon in 1994. The Act made it legal for doctors to prescribe lethal doses of controlled substances to terminally ill patients. The Attorney General claimed the law violated the Controlled Substance Act of 1970. Ashcroft planned to revoke any doctor?s medical license who prescribed lethal doses of controlled substances. Oregon sued Ashcroft and both the district court and the Ninth Circuit court held that Ashcroft was wrong, and the Death with Dignity Act was upheld (Oyez IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, 2015).

The infamous story of Dr. Jack Kevorkian is a unique one. Professor Hengameh M. Hosseini

Dr. Jones found the lump and it he had been unlike anything he had seen before, it was shiny and purple “(like “grape Jell-O,” he wrote later.)” It was “a tumor that would leave her five children motherless and change the future of medicine.”

After being sent to the Brooklyn hospital for a chest x-ray, a big mass was discovered behind her spine. A bone marrow biopsy was done and she was diagnosed with stage three non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Since 5th century B.C. the concepts of physician assisted suicide have been prevalent throughout history. In Ancient Greece and Rome before the coming of Christianity many doctors believed that Physician Assisted Suicide preserved those who were dying honor 's. Even though the Hippocratic Oath stated that no doctor shall give anyone a deadly drug many doctors did not follow this. There was widespread support for voluntary death as opposed to prolonged agony and the physician compiled by giving their patients poison (Timeline). As time progressed there was more widespread support and opposition towards Physician Assisted Suicide. In 1906 bills to legalize Physician Assisted Suicide came about due to the turn of the century. At the turn of the century science had made great strides including in the field of medicine. The bill in 1906 took place in Ohio but was defeated (Timeline). The turmoil of this issue quickly receded, but in 1915 one of the first cases of letting someone die rather than trying to prolonged his or her life came about. In Chicago a mother had just gave birth to her fourth son. Her son was born with numerous defeats that in turn altered his course of life. Without surgery this newborn would not live and with surgery the chance of surviving was minimal. The doctor advised the parents of the outcomes and the parents

In an article describing the end of patient’s lives and what physician-assisted suicide would mean to patients, the writers stated that “[p]atients nearing the end of life want control over their bodies and their lives as a ‘small measure of self preservation,’ they noted” (Alexi, Block Wright). The knowledge that you hold and control your life and everything it stands for in the palm of your hands is a goal that everyone seeks in some point in their lives. For instance, many consider control over one’s death a sign of self-fulfillment and the ultimate happiness. Physician-assisted suicide would give terminally ill patients, people whose bodies are giving out on them, a chance to reach contentment and peace. Furthermore, the lethal dose that ends the patient’s life symbolizes the start of a happier era in which their troubles end with them. Also, the ability to pursue happiness as long as it is not impeding on anyone else’s life is a right that comes with citizenship in the U.S. Another article that illustrates the right to physician-assisted suicide states that “[as] medical science progresses and new methods become available for keeping people alive longer, a patient’s right to refuse medical treatment should be protected” (DiLascio, Pawlick). DiLascio and Pawlick are stating that patients should have the right to physician-assisted

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld court decisions in Washington and New York states that criminalized physician-assisted suicide on July 26, 1997.12 They found that the Constitution did not provide any “right to die,” however, they allowed individual states to govern whether or not they would prohibit or permit physician-assisted suicide. Without much intervention from the states individuals have used their right to refuse medical treatment resulting in controversial passive forms of euthanasia being used by patients to die with dignity such as choosing not to be resuscitated, stopping medication, drinking, or eating, or turning off respirators.9

With a disease that gives you no say, she wanted to have a say in how she dies and she finally got her

right to end their life if they are in severe pain and suffrage? Dr. Jack

With all the different experiments and research coming out it has led to the conclusion that physical changes affect the brain more than chemical changes. According to the patient podcast done in class, it has shown that the different injuries that have happened through some sort of physical contact have caused severe or fatal injuries to the brain. Some of the “patients” scans either show a stroke or a concussion that were mostly fatal. On patient 3 there was a severe stroke that invaded her Pons, Frontal lobe, and Temporal lobe. These are some main area’s of the brain that have been damaged, luckily the damage was not fatal, but when she returns to her life she will have many restrictions on her mental and physical abilities. By physically