Dr. Kevorkian, Mudering in the Name of Mercy

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Imagine that you have been diagnosed with a terminal illness such as cancer and given six months to live. The remainder of your life will be spent in a hospital undergoing treatment and suffering from unbearable pain. Do you want to die or do you want to live the rest of your life in agony? The controversial issue of doctor assisted suicide is followed by a big question. Should states legalize doctor assisted suicide? Physician assisted suicide gives the right for physicians to administer to certain patients lethal doses of drugs with the intention of ending a patients life (Coburn 266). My research for this argument was based on Jack Kervorkian, better known as "doctor death." He has admitted helping more than 130 people end their lives (BBC News Online Network). Kevorkian is from Michigan and has stood trial a number of times for practicing physician assisted suicide. In his latest trial, April 13, 1999, he was charged with a second-degree murder conviction with a penalty of 10-25 years imprisonment with no possibility of bail (Hyde). Dr. Jack Kevorkian stated in the trial that it was his "duty as a doctor" to help patients end their suffering by taking their own lives (Lessenberry 16). In my argument I am going to discuss the issue of whether or not he should have been found guilty of murder. Assisting anyone in death is murder and the court was correct when they charged Kevorkian guilty of murder.

Many people see Dr. Jack Kevorkian as a serial killer possessed by the devil. As a medical resident, he wore a black arm band and asked to work the night shift because more patients died at that time. The man enjoys watching people die. In the 1950's, he received the name "doctor death" through his efforts to photograph...

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...//www.jesus-is-lord.com/kevork,htm. April 25, 1999.

Fumento, Michael. "Dr. Death Takes Us Down the Slippery Slope." Available Online: http://www.consumeralert.org/fumento/slippery.htm. April 25, 1999.

Hedin, Herbert. "Should the House Approve H.R. 4006, the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 1998?" Congressional Digest. November 1998: 272, 274.

Huang, Frederick. "Prescription Medicine-The Goodness of Planned Death." Available Online: http://www.itsa.ucsf.edu/~synapse/archives/june20.96/commentary.html. June/July 1999.

Hyde, Justin. "Judge Sentences Kervorkian to 10 to 25 Years, Denies Bail." The Des Moines Register. April 14, 1999.

Lessenberry, Jack. "In Latest Suicide Trial, Kervorkian Asserts 'Duty as a Doctor'." Newsweek. May, 1996: 16.

Smith, Wesley. "Depressed? Don't Go See Dr. Kervorkian. "Newsweek. September 1995: 29.

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