The Culture of Death and Its Leaders are Anathema!

Kevorkian is back. Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the infamous physician who assisted more than 130 people to their deaths, was released from prison after 9 years behind bars followed by 2 years of parole which has been completed. He currently lives in Michigan. Thanks be to God he cannot practice medicine in any state thus far and those with some notion of morality and a basic understanding of the ethics involved in the medical field would be surprised as to the amount of support he has gained - not only here in the US but worldwide - for his atrocious behavior and the heinous practices he had committed and continues to advocate in the medical field.

In a recent interview on CNN, Kevorkian stated: “I didn’t do it to end the life but to end the suffering the patient was going through. What’s a doctor to do, turn his back?” Of course, Kevorkian insinuates that doctors who would not perform assisted patient suicides lacks courage in his comment that “they are only concerned with money and the bottom line.” His conviction is that someone like him and those who assisted him with the physician assisted suicides are the courageous ones. “Doctors play God all the time,” he continued in the interview questioning. “Anytime you interfere with any natural process you’re playing God. God determines what happens naturally. Patients want to live as long as possible and not suffer so they call a doctor to help them end the suffering.”

In their February 2010 letter regarding the recent healthcare legislation enacted by the Obama administration, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo (Committee on Pro-Life Activities), Bishop William Murphy (Committee on Justice and Human Development), and Bishop John Wester (Committee on Migration) all strongly urged congressional leaders of both the democratic and republican camps to commit themselves to enact genuine healthcare reform that protects life, dignity, conscience, and healthcare for all. The brief but decisive letter went on to state: “The Catholic bishops....as pastors and teachers, [we] believe that genuine healthcare reform must life and dignity from conception to natural death, not threaten them, especially for the voiceless and vulnerable.” Although the letter was not specifically in regards to the death practices of physicians like Kevorkian, the issue is not moot because of conscience clauses in medical facility policies and federal funding to hospitals, such as those in Oregon, whereby such practices are condoned.

“Is there a God?,” this question being put to Kevorkian towards the end of the interview. His response, “I don’t know. I’m a scientist. It’s my natural right to do whatever I want with my body as long as it doesn’t affect anybody else or any others property, and as long as I give myself permission to do it. That’s in the Constitution, in the ninth amendment, whi

ch is ignored.”

Different ways of ending peoples’ lives: some way to allow the person to hit the switch and start the intravenous solution that I would mix and put in the pump [as was in the first case of assisted suicide with a quad patient of Kevorkian’s], then there came gas because since he was not allowed by authorities to do the mixture anymore, followed by the invention of a device he would put over the patients heads with a gas. In his final case he actually injected the patient so that he could be charged so as to go to court with the intent of having the case go before the Supreme Court so as to try and not only get the publicity and worldwide support for life-ending practices, but also to hasten decision that would ultimately lead to them being placed on the law books.

“The law has forced me to do this in the most undignified way,” he said as he elaborated that no family are present, no other medical caregivers are able to help because they would be at risk of legal charges. “They don’t care about the patient but the letter of the law,” he stated - they, I would surmise to say, meaning anyone who does not support his heinous practices. “I would do it again if I knew for certain that I wouldn’t go to jail.”

Although Kevorkian cannot continue with physician assisted deaths, he continues to give advice on how to end one’s life and he hopes that the law will stand out of the picture and that religion would stop pushing against him on the issue so that he can continue his death practicing methods.

Kevorkian is profiled in the HBO movie You Don’t Know Jack, which aired 24 April 2010, and in light of the movie, as well as the Death with Dignity Act passed in Oregon legislature and the Washington Death with Dignity Act that went into effect just a year ago, terminally ill patients (and, in some cases, their family members) are deciding more and more in favor of receiving some sort of death assistance; by the letter of the law, by prescriptions, and by some form of participation in favor of death by their physician(s). Oregon released a report in the spring of 2009, depicting the data by bar graph of those requesting some form of assisted suicide since the passing of the Death with Dignity policy which can be found via the link provided below.

Click here - Death with Dignity Act data: 2009