Jack Kevorkian Assisted Suicide Case Study

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Jack Kevorkian entered into the public eye in June of 1990 after medically assisting the suicide of Janet Adkins and he remained a polarizing figure in American society until his death. Kevorkian’s actions ignited the battle over the issues of one’s right-to-die through euthanasia and whether physicians should have the legal right to assist in suicides of the terminally ill.. Kevorkian’s interest in planned death and euthanasia was facilitated by him witnessing his mother’s death from cancer and observing others suffering from continual pain. He was constantly fighting the authorities and the legal system for his right to perform medically assisted suicides. Kevorkian faced trials five times from May 1994 to March 1999 for assisting in the …show more content…
They state, “They taught their son that politicians and government were not concerned about the truth, the outside world was full of deception and people could only trust their own family.” Jack was intelligent and rebellious as a child and teen. He continued to be bright and disobedient throughout his high school career. He went to the University of Michigan for pre-med and medical school. When he graduated from the University of Michigan’s medical school, he interned at the Henry Ford Hospital. An experience at his internship ignited Kevorkian’s interest in doctor-assisted euthanasia. He witnessed a middle-age woman whose body had been ravaged by cancer. This experience convinced Kevorkian that physician-assisted suicide was ethical. He wrote in Prescription Medicide, “From that moment on, I was sure that doctor-assisted euthanasia and suicide are and always were ethical, no matter what anyone says or thinks.” This experience may have convinced Kevorkian that physician-assisted suicide should be legal; nevertheless, he did not begin working on a plan for enacting doctor-assisted euthanasia. Kevorkian served in the Korean War for two years and returned to the University of Michigan Medical Center to begin …show more content…
He returned to his crusade to convince the American people, medical profession, and United States government that allowing convicts to donate their organs or bodies for medical research would make capital punishment meaningful. His crusade was once again unsuccessful. The failure of his vivisection and organ donation proposals for death-row inmates did not cease Kevorkian’s interest in euthanasia and medical experimentation. His interest in euthanasia was reignited through learning about how doctors in the Netherlands were using euthanasia to end the lives of patients with terminal diseases. Mark Scoifet suggests, “It was during a 1987 trip to the Netherlands, where euthanasia was legal in some instances, that Kevorkian’s interest in the subject was rekindled.” This experience provoked Kevorkian into beginning his war for the legalization of physician- assisted suicide. Kevorkian was willing to begin assisting suicides because he felt the current laws towards euthanasia were inadequate and did not consider the suffering of the terminally
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