Preview

Dr.Jack Kevorkian

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
444 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Dr.Jack Kevorkian
“Dr. Death” Dr. Jack Kevorkian
Dr. Jack Kevorkian was known as “Dr. Death” since at least 1956, when he conducted a study photographing patients' eyes as they died. Results established that blood vessels in the cornea contract and become invisible as the heart stops beating. And he made a lot of other ways to make people like handicapped or anyone who suffer from anything in his life to kill himself, he claims to have assisted at least 130 patients to that end, and he famously said that “dying is not a crime”.
People and the government disagreed with Dr. Kevorkian’s behavior for many several reasons. First his not a god to control the death of people to make them not feel pain and not to face their diseases and destroy them , he is like telling people that life is not worth living for and problems are not going to be solved except with death.
In September of 1998 he videotaped the death of Thomas Youk; the tape was broadcast by CBS television's 60 Minutes in November, what a cruel thing to videotape? The death of man and broadcast it on live T.V. This man made a hundreds of families miserable with his invention "Mercitron" (mercy machine). If he is deciding for people weather to live or die by acting if u don’t feel pain then live, if u experience death it will be much helpful and comfortable. Then what is the importance of god, I thought he was the one who knows who will die and when, and can make all of the people of earth die in one second and live in one second.
There are only a few cases where someone is allowed to take a life and even these cases are not agreed upon. These cases could be in self defense or if someone is badly injured or sick and there is no medical care that could help him and living on even for a minute will cause suffering beyond imagination. But there has never been a case where some loco doctor wants to experiment death on other and people agreed with him. This must mean that this is one sick person and no one agrees with him

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Shatzer, J. (2010). Between the Dying and the Dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian 's Life and the Battle to Legalize Euthanasia. Ethics & Medicine, 26(2), 128. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from Research Library. (Document ID: 2015897771).…

    • 1087 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kervorkian took the spotlight across the nation which led to the rejection from the University of Michigan Medical Care. However, he still continued his internship at the Pontiac General Hospital and later conducted new experiments there. While he was there, he heard about a Russian Medical Team transfusing blood from corpses into living people who were trying to save their lives. Kervorkian teamed up with another medical terminologist named Neal Nicol, who assisted him in this experiment. This experiment was very successful and Jack believed that this could be the difference between if someone lives or dies in the battlefield. If blood from a blood bank was unavailable, doctors could use Kervorkian’s experiment to transfuse the blood from a corpse…

    • 370 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dr. Death, Death machine, and murderer. These terms surround Dr. Jack Kevorkian and make his story menacing. Dr. Kevorkian, a physician in the 1990’s, used and advocated Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS). PAS describes a physician knowledgeably giving a person medication to induce death with the person’s consent. Dr. Kevorkian would provide a device which attached to a person, allowing them to flip a switch that caused death.…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In 2014, a 29-year old woman named Brittany Maynard, publicly announced she was going to legally take her own life. She was suffering from brain cancer and chose to move to Oregon to utilize their Death with Dignity Law (Maynard, 2014). Because of her age, assisted suicide was thrust into the media and became a huge talking point. Assisted suicide existed in the media prior to 2014. Dr. Jack Kevorkian, dubbed “Dr. Death”, was an active proponent for physician-assisted suicide. In 1999, he was convicted of second-degree murder for his role in over 130 assisted suicides and hailed as a champion by other right to die activists (James, 2011). In 2010, the television film, You Don’t Know Jack aired on HBO. The film showed a humanistic side to the man people called, ‘Dr. Death’. This…

    • 1638 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Or consider Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who let Janet Adkins, a 54 year old sufferer of early Alzheimer's, use his homemade "suicide machine" to kill herself. She pushed a button which released lethal fluids into her body. He has likewise administered death to dozens of others.…

    • 260 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dr. Jack Kevorkian was the face of the assisted suicide movement in the 1990s, and his practices in assisted suicide and euthanasia are shrouded in controversy. According to (Preface p.1), “He invented a killing machine called the mercitron which incapacitated or debilitated people could use to take their own lives: All they had to do was flip a switch.” He became known as Dr. Death and assisted over 130 people in their deaths from 1990-1998. In attempt to bring attention to the Right to Die movement, Dr. Kevorkian was public about his self-described “mercy killings.” In doing so, he had several murder charges brought against him by the state of Michigan. He was never convinced, until his attempt to ratchet up the debate resulted in him taping…

    • 219 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jack Kevorkian

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages

    I think that one of the biggest miscarriages of justice that I witnessed in my lifetime was that of Dr. Jack Kevorkian receiving a 10 to 25 year sentence for wanting to help end the suffering of a helpless human-being. Dubbed "Dr. Death" by the media frenzy that followed the actions of the controversial physician, he received this sentence for helping to end the life of 52 year old Thomas Youk, who was fighting a hopeless battle with Lou Gehrig's disease. Dr. Kevorkian set up his "suicide machine" in order for the person to knowlingly and voluntarily disperse the chemical concoction that would end the suffering of the victim his family. Although Dr. Kevorkian assisted in the death of 35 people, it was the Thomas Youk case that brought national attention and thus the wrath of the criminal justice system of the state of Michigan. Similar to phsycian-suicide is the issue of both voluntary and involuntary active euthanasia. Both of these involve carrying out the death of another human being, who either knowingly or unknowlingly makes that decision. What makes the case of Dr. Kevorkian different is that he met with all of his patients and recorded the fact that they were coherent and able to make their own decision about the ending their life. I am guessing that when the Thomas Youk story aired on 60 Minutes in 1998, it brought national scutiny and a mockery of the laws in the eyes of the Michigan criminal justice system. I wanted to better understand this concept the particulars about this case and what the overwhelming public opinion on the topic was nationally and within the state of Michigan.…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Weeds vs. Flowers

    • 4681 Words
    • 19 Pages

    Dr. Jack Kevorkian is a firm believer in physician-assisted suicide, giving his patients the dignity and respect that they deserved in making this last major decision for their life and how they wanted to end it. His patients thought of him as a hero because he aided them in their major time of need, and they felt very comfortable with him because they didn’t have to worry about feeling awkward when bringing up this method of help. The family members of Kevorkian’s patients were ultimately happy that he provided such ease to their loved ones, and showed nothing but care and respect for those individuals. This decision is a heavy burden to bear because of the feelings that the majority of people feel is wrong and immoral. Dr. Kevorkian was convicted of second degree murder in 1999 because of assistance with euthanizing one of his patients Thomas Youk, who suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1998. He was provided with financial support by an organization called “The Hemlock Society” for his lawsuit, and they also referred patients to him for their aid in finding a caring physician that would end their suffering.…

    • 4681 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Better Essays

    Dr. Kevorkian was a controversial figure and the public was sometimes skeptical of his contribution to establishing the "death with dignity" movement for the terminally ill (Humphry). "Patient flying to Michigan one day, and being found dead the next, is not their idea of caring a cautious medical practice," said Derek Humphry in the article, "Evaluating Dr. Kevorkian's Contribution to the Right to Die Movement in America". Dr. Kevorkian believed that if a patient has expressed the want to end their own life, it is not our position to stand in their way. Dr. Kevorkian strategically used his publicity to bring attention to the needs of suffering individuals, and some political activists during this time saw this as a negative impact in the media; therefore, they did not look forward to running into him (Humphry). His efforts did bring more attention to issues such as hospice services, pain management care, and other end of life care. Over the years, things have drastically changed when it comes to Dr. Kevorkian's practices and palliative care as a whole. There are now national organizations who specialized in finding ways to assist suffering and dying people find a peaceful and legal end to their…

    • 1342 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Physician-assisted suicide is one topic that many countries have yet to tackle. Considering the many complex issues and underlying controversies, there is no doubt that the idea of taking one's life with medical collaboration is one of many criterias. There are many benefits for those individuals affected by terminal illnesses and irreversible damages to their health (i.e. AIDS or Parkinson’s Disease), such as removing the pain from their lives and allowing their families to be at peace knowing that they are no longer in harm’s way, but suicide in and of itself is a difficult challenge to defend. The act of taking one’s life is one that has been fought against for years, and…

    • 258 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He nearly single-handedly started the discussion about physician-assisted suicide by being the first physician to actually begin carrying out the act and assisting the terminally ill to die. One of the most commonly cited counterarguments against physician-assisted suicide is the claim that it is a violation of the Hippocratic Oath, and that by assisting one in taking their own life, a doctor is breaking the ancient and sacred code of their profession. This argument could have merit, were it not for the fact that the Hippocratic Oath itself is not always administered to doctors, and there is no system in place for enforcement of the “Oath”(Opposing Viewpoints p48-54). At no point in medical school is the Hippocratic Oath required to be administered by the school, nor taken by every graduating doctor. Even if participating in an assisted-suicide were in violation of the Oath, the Oath itself is absolutely not a benchmark, nor a law for the doctor to follow. The Oath states that the doctor will “do no harm” with his work, many take this as an example as to why physician assisted suicide is immoral. They believe that if the doctor is giving the patient something that can and will take his life, that he is harming the patient. This belief is false, in no way is the doctor forcing the patient’s hand, and at no point in the entire process is the patient doing anything without being informed…

    • 924 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The right to physician-assisted suicide is a very controversial topic that concerns many people all over the world. There has been much debate about whether a terminally ill patient has the right to die with the assistance of a physician. Physician-assisted suicide is defined as a physician providing a patient with means to kill themselves. The doctor would prescribe a lethal dose of medication to the patient to end their life. From the Utilitarian standpoint, physician-assisted suicide is morally acceptable because the patients should be allowed to end there suffering, reduce the damaging financial…

    • 1112 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Physician-assisted suicide grants the opportunity for a doctor to lethally inject drugs into a consented patient. This controversial topic has sparked a huge moral issue. The feud between whether it is morally acceptable ultimately pays no key role. People have been committing suicide in gruesome ways for hundreds of years and will continue to do so. If their only ambition is to die, why not let them do it peacefully? Even though this subject is seen as morally unacceptable, physician-assisted suicide should only be legal in certain circumstances, including the following: when a patient is terminally ill, with validation from their doctor, inmates in prison sentenced for life, and patients in an irreversible coma.…

    • 805 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Physician Assisted Suicide

    • 1248 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Physician Assisted Death is an extraordinary issue that is difficult to talk about. I, myself found it difficult to research for this paper for two reasons. The first being that I’ve affected by suicide and numerous…

    • 1248 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    He helped as many people as he could with their final wishes and was unafraid of how this made him look. Kevorkian was more concerned with what the patient wanted and how they were feeling. He had enough mercy and compassion to help them find peace. He continued to do what he believed was right even with all of the negative publicity and imprisonment for a debatable crime. His name, his career, and his legacy was forever changed after being convicted of murder. Kevorkian gave his life to this practice and continued to advocate for it even when he was released from prison. His devotion to the cause is demonstrated by his tombstone that reads “He sacrificed himself for everyone’s rights”(Qtd. in Wilson). Kevorkian made the decision to continue such a controversial practice which ended up helping over a hundred people exercise their right of choosing life or death. He felt so personally connected to this practice because he experienced the suffering of a terminally ill family member. His mother had cancer and at the final stages, he saw it immoral to continue her pain. She was in a coma, weighing very little, and was administered large amounts of painkillers. Kevorkian’s first hand experience negates the claims that he doesn’t understand the…

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics