Kevorkian gets early release from Michigan prison

[Zuiderelle]

Source: Radio Canada - CBC.CA

Kevorkian gets early release from Michigan prison
Last Updated: Friday, June 1, 2007 | 9:05 AM ET
CBC News

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a longtime advocate of assisted suicide, will leave a Michigan prison Friday after serving eight years for second-degree murder.

Kevorkian, a retired pathologist, was jailed in 1999 after helping a terminally ill patient die.

A jury convicted him in the death of Thomas Youk, a 52-year-old man with Lou Gehrig's disease.

Kevorkian was given a 10- to 25-year sentence, but is being released early
for good behavior.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/06/01/kevorkian-release.html

[JPZenger]

1. They Kept the Guy in Jail for 8 Years Until He was 79

Michigan is screwed up. Child molesters are let out to molest again in less time. But they kept this old man in jail for 8 long years. He's very lucky he didn't die in jail. His health has really deteriorated. Michigan is now assigning a probation officer for 2 years for full-time just to follow him around. Why can't they pay the same attention to really dangerous parolees.

As I understand it, the powers that be in Michigan somehow tied assisted suicide of terminally ill people into an anti-abortion issue. They decided to make an example out of him.

[Warpy]

3. Right, they want people to wring every last bit of misery out of

a horrible illness. I will never understand what drives these people, is it a horror of death? Fear of judgment that they project onto others? What?

I've seen too many old people in the hospital, too sick to be able to tell us what they want, surrounded by fundy families who want everything done, changing what could be a medicated and relatively easy death into prolonged torture on multiple machines, with drug induced paralysis, just to keep the person technically alive for hours, days or weeks. Are they trying to keep Granny out of hell for as long as they can? Are they projecting their own fear onto her?

I know my mother begged for help in dying. My dad stockpiled sleeping pills and put a lethal dose within arm's reach, something I didn't find out until she was gone. She never used them, but she relaxed and stopped begging us to help her die. I thanked him for doing that for her.

As for Dr. Kevorkian, he did a service by opening up the debate on right to die issues. It was a terrible thing to do to keep him in prison this long.

[pitohui]

9. it's the dollar bill

i had an older relative, v. wealthy, literally millions of dollars, she was kept alive without a brain on machines for over 20 years

none of this is about money or right to life, it is about draining hope and dollars from the families and who cares if the patient in question is tortured without hope for months, years -- or as in the case of my relative, decades

kevorkian offered a cheap alternative to destroying a family's financial future and keeping a terminal patient alive in pain without hope -- this is just too decent for the "money conquers all" aka "right to life" crowd

where there is no money to be made, they are happy to slink away and let the machines to be turned off, look at the cases in texas where the machines are turned off once families are impoverished and no "right to lifer" speaks up or cares

"right to life" is about greed and money and not caring what terrible pain must be suffered, as long as there is a profit to be made by transferring wealth from families to hospitals and fundy churches

that's my story and i'm sticking to it, have i said how much i hate these people?

i hope dr. k. is left in peace to enjoy what remains of his life, he has given all a man can be asked to give

[Warpy]

11. It's not about the dollars, either

It's about not having a medical power of attorney with someone willing to stand up to the rest of the family and say "enough!" It's about it being a massive hassle to get those tubes taken out once they've been put in, even when hope of improvement has evaporated.

It's about right to lifers and lawyers and other busybodies who intrude into what should be the most private area of all, death. It's about medical institutions who are legitimately afraid to discontinue treatment without orders from a legal guardian or preferably a court of law. We are a litigious society and they all know it and there's always a right to lifer somewhere in the building itching to raise a stink.

As for the Texas law, it's a step in the right direction. I've agreed with every single case it's been used on. Families were given adequate time to let go of false hope and it was in the patients' interests to pull the plugs. The only thing wrong with the statute is applying it first to the medically indigent and second to those whose insurance companies finally balk.

Something has to be done. The best solution is when an ethics committee meets and has a meeting with the family and all agree that continued heroics are futile and cruel. Unfortunately, people still cling to false hope and some people are without family members qualified to make the decision and lawyers are poised to help right to lifers raise hell.

[pitohui]

25. medical powers of attorney seem to be honored in the breech

in my experience these fears are exploited to sell attorney services that turn out not to be honored anyway (maybe this is just in louisiana and florida, i dunno)

a piece of paper, no matter how many attorneys, guarantees zilch in our family's experience

[Nomad559]

2. VIDEO: Jack Kevorkian on 60 Minutes

With Andy Rooney - May 1996

http://en.sevenload.com/videos/QuNe5Pu/Jack-Kevorkian-on-60-Minutes

:)

[BootinUp]

13. worth the watch

thanks.

[Nomad559]

18. Jack Kevorkian on his release: 'It’s wonderful'

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070601/NEWS06/70601012/1048/SPORTS&theme=KEVORKIAN052007

Jack Kevorkian walked out of state prison today for the first time in more than eight years, flanked by his attorneys, two family friends and “60 Minutes” correspondent Mike Wallace, who greeted Kevorkian with a hug.

“It’s wonderful,” said a smiling Kevorkian, who eschewed a business suit his attorneys had brought for him for a trademark blue cardigan. “It’s one of the high points of life.”

When asked how he felt, he told pool reporters, “good.”

:)

[Zywiec]

4. He should never have been sent to jail n/t

[BootinUp]

5. 8 years.

Boy thats a long fuckin time. The justice system (Cough) treated this man terribly when he was only interested in helping people who were suffering.

[Jesterstear]

6. I could be wrong, but...

Didn't he start helping people kill themselves because they were in pain and not terminally ill? If so, he deserved to be in jail.

Hell, he deserves to be in jail just for hiring noted attention whore Geoffry Fieger to represent him.

[Zuiderelle]

7. Welcome to DU. Yes, you are wrong.

[nodehopper]

8. you are wrong, but even if he did, what would be wrong with that?

if someone is in pain and wants to die, that is their prerogative.

[Jesterstear]

16. Sorry, but...

I draw a line betweein "in pain" and "terminally ill."

I do think that our medicinal practices need to be refined to allow for people in pain to have access to better (and more) medication, but I personally believe that helping people to kill themselves just because they're "in pain" is wrong.

Between that and allowing Feiger to turn the case into a circus, Kevorkian really hurt his cause IMHO.

[Pastiche423]

19. Until you are in pain 24/7 - 365

Then you simply do not know what you are talking about.

Btw, what gives you the right to say it's wrong?

[beevul]

20. Thats fine.

I draw a line betweein "in pain" and "terminally ill."

Your entitled to draw that line for yourself imo.

When you start trying to draw it for others though, you have crossed a line yourself.

It should be neither your or the governments place to draw that line for others. It just isn't any business of thiers, or yours.

No offense intended.

[nodehopper]

21. who are you to legislate what others do with their bodies

as long as they are not harming anyone else?

[pitohui]

10. it clearly says the patient was terminally ill from lou gehrig's disease

it is usually considered courteous to read the original post, where this information is given, before responding

for extra bonus points, one could even read the entire news article before casting aspersions on someone who sacrificed their freedom and medical license to ease other people's suffering

he could have sat on his ass keeping people hooked up in agony on machines like so many other doctors do, risking nothing and getting rich off being a bloodsucking vampire, but he actually had a care about terminal people in pain

too bad there aren't more like him

[Name removed]

15. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[razzleberry]

22. not OK to murdur him , just because you think he is suffering .n/t

[pitohui]

24. patients of dr. k sought him out to get his help

when you have had a family member in terminal agony for years or decades, get back to me

dr. k. helped those who sought him out because they were dying and wanted the torture to end

where there is no hope, it is cruel to keep people on machines just so the medical establishment can drain the families of their last dollar

many people want to 1)die in peace rather than pain, and 2) to be remembered with love rather than as objects of horror

we shouldn't be put in a situation where family members have to figure out how to get drugs into a loved one screaming in agony and begging to be put out of their misery, this should be part of a medical professional's job to help w. end of life issues when there is no hope

another issue, in my family, is that if medical professionals won't help (and they won't) then a person w. alzheimer's may have no choice but to committ suicide much earlier than they would otherwise choose, so as to not risk missing the point beyond which we can't act for ourselves -- of course, if it doesn't affect your family, why should you care? is the attitude i get from the right to life crowd

[NeoConsSuck]

23. He was in jail

because he gave the government the proverbial finger.

And for a majority of the trial, he represented himself.

I hoped then, and I still hope now, that the judge in that trial suffers a slow, agonizing death.

[damntexdem]

12. Will someone be indicted for assisting him in getting released?

That would just seem to fit in with the vendetta against him.

[Demeter]

14. There Is a Belief That Suffering On Earth Reduces The Amount of Time

one has to suffer in Purgatory--this is Catholic, okay? So by making you suffer a lingering excruciating death, the Church is actually looking out for your future happiness! Then there are those people who suspect that given half a leg to stand on, their relatives would knock them off. (Which says something about these people AND their relations).

And messing with the will is a standard plot device in murder mysteries.

People are so cruel, sometimes. Sometimes just by trying to be kind. Sometimes on purpose. Sometimes for kicks. A Living Will is the first line of defense against that.

[Kolesar]

17. I asked my physician for a referral

He sent me to Doctor Kevorkian!
--Rodney Dangerfield