Kevorkian “dying” – again

Kevorkian, media coverage, Our News & Commentary Blog, reality check

I’ll admit I’ve been kind of surprised that Kevorkian hasn’t been out on the road doing speaking gigs. In fact, until the last week, the only one scheduled was at the University of Florida, which has been postponed due to the infamous “don’t taser me, bro” incident at an appearance by Senator John Kerry.

It could be that Kevorkian just isn’t someone who is a draw if he isn’t going out and amassing a body count. It could also be that at least some organizations have reviewed some of his speeches and writings and found that he’s pretty incoherent a lot of the time.

But just this week, the Criminal Justice Club of Wayne State University announced that Kevorkian would give a lecture on prison reform. The lead on the story at “Click on Detroit” gave me that old feeling of “deja vu all over again.”:

DETROIT — Jack Kevorkian, the former pathologist whose name is almost synonymous with physician-assisted suicide in the United States, is scheduled to make what could be one of his last public appearances in Detroit on Nov. 29.

Say what? Is he moving out of the country? I thought the terms of his parole prevented that.

Nope. According to the news story, it’s because Kevorkian doesn’t have long to live:

The WSU Criminal Justice Club, which is sponsoring the talk, said in a news release this might be a “rare educational opportunity that may never present itself again,” since Kevorkian is terminally ill with Hepatitis C.

Funny. When Kevorkian talked with Mike Wallace after his release, he referred to his Hepatitis C and other ailments as pretty much under control, describing his health as “fair.”

I emailed the contact listed on the website for the Criminal Justice Club, asking for a copy of their press release. I got a response and a copy of the release pretty quickly. It looks like the Club may have been duped:

Jack Kevorkian will be appearing as a guest speaker of the Criminal Justice Club on November 29, 2007 at 12:00 in Helen DeRoy Audiorium 049 (bottom level auditorium). This event is co-sponsored by the Criminal Justice Club, Student Council, and Department of Criminal Justice. As you may have heard, Dr. Kevorkian’s lawyer has stated that Kevorkian is terminally ill with Hepatitis C,
so this is a rare educational opportunity that may never present itself again.

Yep. I did hear that. I heard it in 2003. I heard it again in 2004. etc. etc.

Like the boy who cried “wolf,” Mayer Morganroth claimed – year after year – that Kevorkian had “less than a year to live” in his efforts to win an early release for his client. This was laid out and confirmed in an Associated Press story that appeared on December 14th of last year (link is no longer operational):

Some object to Kevorkian’s upcoming release from prison
12/14/2006, 5:34 p.m. ET
By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN
The Associated Press

(excerpt)
Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group based in Forest Park, Ill., also said it was disappointed that Kevorkian would be released in June.

“We won’t forget the struggling disabled people he preyed upon. And we won’t be silent,” the group said in a statement.

It added that it expected that the 78-year-old Kevorkian, after leaving prison, will show a “near-miraculous `recovery'” from his health problems, which include diabetes, hepatitis C, high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries in his brain and vertigo, according to his attorney.

“We were suspicious his health problems were greatly exaggerated when his lawyer filed appeals for four years in a row claiming Kevorkian was essentially on the brink of death,” the group said.

***

Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd said all requests to have sentences commuted for health reasons must first go to the Corrections Department and then to the parole board, which recommends to the governor whether the request should be honored.

Boyd said Morganroth already has made four such requests, in 2003, 2004, 2005 and earlier this year.”In each instance he indicated that Dr. Jack Kevorkian had less than a year to live,” she said.

“Miraculously,” as we predicted, Kevorkian seemed to be far from a frail and dying figure once he emerged from prison. He looked forward to talking to the media, writing books and doing lectures.

No one in the media questioned how someone who had been described as “dying” – for several years in a row – suddenly seemed to have transformed himself into an elderly man with serious but manageable health problems.

And the press probably won’t blink now that Morganroth and the Criminal Justice Club are back to describing Kevorkian as “terminally ill” now.

Morganroth has an advantage that the boy who cried “wolf” didn’t have. The villagers that dealt with the boy in the story had something resembling a long-term memory. There is little evidence of that in either the press or the public consciousness. –Stephen Drake

Swiss Group Dignitas Taking a Cue from Kevorkian Playbook?

assisted suicide, Kevorkian, Our News & Commentary Blog, Switzerland

There’s a new twist in the ongoing saga involving Dignitas, the Swiss group that caters to old, ill and disabled tourists wanting to kill themselves.

As we reported earlier, Dignitas has run into problems with the NIMBY (“not in my back yard) phenomenon. The group was kicked out of two apartments as a result of complaints by neighbors who apparently objected to the physical reality of corpses and body bags in their making regular appearances in their living space.

Well, the group’s troubles continue to mount. According to press reports (more below, with link), the Association of Zurich Hoteliers has officially barred the group from using hotels rooms for its “services.”

So they’ve worked out a new solution, which will be familiar to those of us who followed Jack Kevorkian’s killing career – “mobile suicide services.”

There are several stories running around about this latest development, but this one from the UK Telegraph is one of the most detailed:

A controversial Swiss suicide charity is now helping people to die in car parks after being forced out of its premises by local residents.

Two German men aged 50 and 65 have already used the “death on wheels” service of the Dignitas charity, which handed them a lethal cocktail of drugs in a car park near Zurich last week.

The deaths were only reported yesterday, with a local prosecutor confirming that both men drove to the woodland parking area in the Maur suburb and took an overdose of barbiturates in their cars.

This isn’t exactly a new idea. This was Jack Kevorkian’s way of doing business for quite some time. It’s interesting that a lot of people found the “esthetics” of what he was doing much more objectionable than his actual facilitation of people’s suicides (news articles such as the one linked above often made mention of the extreme age and poor condition of his van).

Looks like Dignitas is getting some of that same reaction:

Josef Hecken, the justice minister in the German region of Saarland, said Dignitas’s methods were “outrageous”, while the Swiss Social Democrat MP, Dieter Wiefelspütz, said: “We need to do everything we can to stop this group from operating. It is degrading.” (according to the article, over half of Dignitas clients come from Germany)

It’s clear that Dignitas has become a huge source of embarrassment to the Swiss. What is less clear is what – if anything – they are willing to do about it. –Stephen Drake

Response to Mercury News Editorial by Ex. Dir. of Calif. Foundation for Independent Living

advocacy, assisted suicide, media coverage, Our News & Commentary Blog

Yesterday, I linked to an editorial from the San Jose Mercury News and commented on it.

Today’s paper features a response essay by Teresa Favuzzi. Favuzzi is the executive director of the California Foundation for Independent Living.

Excerpts:

For the past few years the Mercury News has consistently opined for the legalization of assisted suicide. However, for the third time in as many years, this extreme legislation was rebuked by Democratic and Republican members of the state Legislature. This is not surprising given the vast opposition from over 20 statewide and national disability rights organizations, the California Medical Association, the California Hospice and Palliative Care Association and civil rights organizations like the California League of Latin American Citizens, not to mention groups representing the seniors, the poor and the uninsured.

In case I forgot to mention it, the Mercury News editorial managed to “forget” mentioning the diversity of opposition to legalized assisted suicide in California. They only named religious groups.

Anyway, you should read the rest of the piece. Favuzzi’s essay and analysis of the issues gives you a good idea why the coalition opposing legalization in California has been so effective. There are a lot of hard-working, passionate and articulate advocates in California – especially in the disability community. –Stephen Drake

San Jose Mercury News Pushes Assisted Suicide – Dishonestly

assisted suicide, Oregon, Our News & Commentary Blog, safeguards

On November 5, the San Jose Mercury News published an editorial enthusiastically supporting the adoption of an assisted suicide law similar to Oregon’s – and bemoaning the lack of one.

Predictably, it’s crap. Here’s one example:

Doctors, of all people, should know that for a small percentage – roughly 5 percent – of terminally ill patients, morphine and other drugs cannot control their pain, making the final weeks and months of their lives unbearable.

Where’d they get that number? And don’t they know there are other legal options that exist for whatever percentage of people whose needs can’t be met with standard palliative care?

But the real kicker is that the implied argument here – that it’s all about unrelieved pain – is a lie. It’s impossible to know if the editorial staff is deliberately misleading its readers or writing out of ignorance. But neither is really excusable.

In this table from the 2006 Oregon Report, characteristics of people known to have ended their lives under the law are given. Under “end of life” concerns, the issue of “pain” is number 6 on the list. And it’s not clear whether or not the people involved were really feeling that their pain was inadeqately controlled, or they were afraid it wouldn’t be controlled – both are conveniently lumped into one category so we can’t really know. You’d think that would be important information to have, wouldn’t you?

What’s higher on the list?

Losing autonomy, less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable, loss of dignity, losing control of bodily functions, and burden on family, friends/caregivers.

The editorial doesn’t stop there. Here’s some nicely familiar pontification:

Oregon’s law does not condone euthanasia, as many often believe. The state put numerous safeguards in place so that the law would not be abused. In order to take advantage of the right to die with dignity, patients must be older than 18, be diagnosed by at least two doctors with an illness that will lead to death in six months and be able to make a competent medical decision on their own. The prescribed drugs must be administered by the patient.

It is clear that Oregon’s extensive safeguards are working.

Safeguards. Working.

Guess the editorial staff didn’t get the news about the Oregon governor’s report on the Nursing Review Board there, which found that the Board was more concerned with protecting the licenses of nurses than the lives and safety of patients. One of the cases the Board treated with a light hand was one in which two nurses allegedly “assisted” or outright murdered a patient under their care. Hard to know how much safeguards mean in Oregon.

And it’s hard to know how much safeguards are worth in California, for that matter. Just check our older entries on the deaths of Ruben Navarro and Linda Sue Brown. In the case of Ruben Navarro, a transplant surgeon is facing criminal charges connected with his death, but the medical review boards ruled that the nurses and physicians who allowed and/or aided the doctor in illegal conduct did nothing wrong. As for Linda Sue Brown – it’s another nightmare scenario of medical neglect and misconduct – but, according to professional review boards, no one did anything wrong.

“Safeguards” only mean something when there is accountability. There is no credible evidence of accountability in regard to the professional behavior of medical professionals in either Oregon or California. Be nice to see some before we start promoting “oversight” that doesn’t exist. –Stephen Drake

Update: We’re Still Here and NDY

Our News & Commentary Blog

Just a quick note right now to let everyone know that we’re (cough) “not dead yet.” We’re just really short on time, energy and computer access right now while handling a family health crisis. As to the health crisis part, we’re not through it yet, but we are at a point where cautious optimism is the order of the day.

In the meantime, I’ll try to get in a few posts. Probably one today and maybe two tomorrow. I’m nervous at this point about even making promises about tomorrow.

But I’ll do my best. –Stephen Drake