On This Day in History: September 17
Dr. Kevorkian
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I loved my dog so much that when he was sick and in pain, I had a vet come to my house to give him a painless voyage to doggie heaven. Most people don’t have a problem with that, but when it comes to humans many think you better fucking not, or we’ll throw your ass in prison, which is what they did to Dr. Jack Kevorkian.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: September 17, 1998--
Poor Jack. He just wanted to help people. A pathologist born in Michigan in 1928, he had some odd ideas early in his career about shit like experimenting on death row inmates (with their permission) and transfusing blood from dead people. These ideas did not catch on. But the “hey I’m in fucking agony and it’s only going to get worse please let me die” idea did.
In the late 80s Dr. Kevorkian put an ad in some Detroit Newspapers offering his services as a physician consultant for “death counseling.” His first client was Janet Adkins in 1990, a 54-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s. The location of her death was not the most dignified; it was in the back of Kevorkian’s rusty old VW Microbus. That’s where he plied his trade with most of his assisted suicide clients, using a homemade suicide machine. Sometimes death was delivered via drugs, other times carbon monoxide. For legal reasons, Kevorkian required his clients to trigger their own deaths using the machine, although he hooked them up to it. The first time he used it he was charged with first-degree murder.
The charges were dropped six months later because it turned out Michigan didn’t have any laws against assisted suicide at the time. But the state yanked his medical license and said no more doctoring for you. Still, he kept on, assisting in approximately 130 suicides over the next eight years, earning the moniker “Dr. Death.” Then he pushed too far.
Kevorkian said he wasn’t about causing death, but ending suffering. He was trying to push society to be accepting of medical aid in dying. On September 17, 1998 he assisted in the death of 52-year-old Thomas Youk, who was in the final stages of ALS. Youk gave informed consent, but what was different this time was that Dr. Kevorkian himself flipped the switch. Before that he’d been assisting suicides. This time he took the final action causing Youk’s death, which is euthanasia. He also videotaped it and allowed to be shown on 60 Minutes two months later as a fuck you what you gonna do about it to the government. And the government said we’re gonna lock you the fuck up.
The state had tried and failed to prosecute Kevorkian four times, but this time they had the evidence to convict. He was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison and served eight. He died four years after he was released, at the age of 83. Due in large part to his efforts, many regions now allow assisted suicide for those who are suffering and/or terminally ill.
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Our veterinarian came to our house to do the same for our yellow Lab, Sam. While there, he told me that he had originally been in medical school, not veterinary school. An elderly relative (I think grandfather or uncle?) was dying and in so much pain that that he begged the med school student to end it for him. Our veterinarian, of course, could not do that. That is when he changed his career objective to veterinarian, partly because he would be able to end terminal suffering.
Voluntary Assisted Dying laws are now in effect in five Australian states. In no small part to strong activism and the indefatigable efforts of journalist Andrew Denton. It's about time.