Celebrity Death!
God decided the right time for Dr. Jack Kevorkian to die?
[Jun. 3]
Dr. Death Jack Kevorkian was a humanitarian who didn’t choose assisted suicide for himself? In an Associated Press report, the Washington Post shared very real trivia that Dr. Jack Kevorkian had claimed to have assisted at least 130 people commit suicide. “Those outraged by what he did accused him of being unethical and playing God.” However, in the case of Jack Kevorkian and his celebrity death, it seems God decided the right time to take him. Jack Kevorkian, known as Dr. Death for his right-to-die advocacy, has died. Kevorkian who was an unapologetic supporter of assisted suicide, died at age 83 early Friday morning at William Beaumont Hospital, a Detroit area hospital in Royal Oak. Kevorkian had been hospitalized for kidney and respiratory problems, according to the Huffington Post. Surprisingly, in spite of his advocacy for assisted suicide, he did not take that option himself. “It’s not necessarily murder,” Kevorkian told Mike Wallace in a recent celebrity interview for television. “But it doesn’t bother me what you call it. I know what it is…” said the convicted felon. Dr. Jack Kevorkian had been nicknamed Dr. Death, following a string of assisted suicide cases in the 1990s. While Kevorkian had been acquitted on murder charges for several of the assisted suicide cases, he ultimately wound up in prison on a 10 to 15 year prison sentence for second degree murder. He served eight of those years and had been released from jail as a celebrity senior citizen and cult folk hero back in 2007.
CBS reports, “Long-time associate and friend Jeffrey Fieger said Kevorkian died of a pulmonary embolism around 2:30 am.”
“He had a cancerous legion, but that they felt was operable. But everything seemed to be, shall we say solvable, except he got pulmonary thrombosis, a clot that came into the lungs, and that bottomed out very quickly,” Kevorkian’s attorney, Mayer Morganroth said.
He was convicted of second degree murder in 1999 after a video showed Kevorkian giving a man who had Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) a lethal injection. ALS is a nerve disease in the brain and spinal cord which damages voluntary motor control. Following his release from prison, Kevorkian, who was then in declining health, made an unsuccessful bid for Congress.
Dr. Death Jack Kevorkian first began his attempts at assisted suicide with bits and pieces he could scrounge from places like flea markets. He sought his first patient by way of a newspaper advertisements. His notoriety grew by way of television and newspaper interviews with Dr. Kevorkian.
CBS reported further, sharing, “On June 4, 1990, he drove his van to a secluded park north of Detroit. After Janet Adkins, 54, of Portland, Ore., met him there, he inserted a needle into her arm and, when she was ready, she flipped the switch that released a lethal flow of drugs.”
The Huffington Post also reported the celebrity rumors and quotes from his friends. “I think that Dr. Kevorkian was a man who sought out humanity,” said Frank Kavanaugh, a member of the board of directors of the Final Exit Network, a non-profit and right-to-die organization. “He was a very controversial figure, but I think even critics would agree that because of that, hospice care has really boomed in the United States.” To that end, whether one believes in God or not, it is worth saying a prayer of thanks to Dr. Jack Kevorkian for allowing people to die with dignity at the time they are ready — without feeling compelled to prolong life and suffering with terminal medical conditions needlessly to amuse hospital staff playing missionary.
Dr. Death, Jack Kevorkian, didn’t play God when it came to his own time to die. Does that make him a hypocrite or a true humanitarian? You decide.