Jack Kevorkian (right) with Al Pacino, who played the assisted-dying advocate in the 2010 film You Don't Know Jack. Photograph: Gregory Pace/BEI / Rex Features
Jack Kevorkian, a retired pathologist who helped dozens of ailing people to end their lives, has died in a Detroit hospital after a short illness. He was 83.
Kevorkian, who claimed he had helped about 130 people to kill themselves between 1990 and 1999, died at William Beaumont hospital in Michigan, close friend Mayer Morganroth said.
Nicknamed Dr Death, Kevorkian came to prominence in 1990 when he used his homemade "suicide machine" in his rusted Volkswagen van to inject lethal drugs into an Alzheimer's disease patient who sought his help.
He had been hospitalised since last month with pneumonia and kidney problems, Morganroth said. An official cause of death had not been determined, but Morganroth said it was likely to have been pulmonary thrombosis.
"I had seen him earlier and he was conscious," said Morganroth, who added that the two spoke about Kevorkian's pending release from hospital and planned start of rehabilitation. "Then I left and he took a turn for the worse and I went back."
Nurses played music by Bach for Kevorkian before he died, Morganroth said.
Kevorkian was freed in June 2007 after serving eight years of a 10 to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder. His lawyers had said he suffered from Hepatitis C, diabetes and other problems, and he had promised in affidavits that he would not assist in a death if he was released.
In 2008, he ran for Congress as an independent, receiving just 2.7% of the vote in the suburban Detroit district. He said his experience showed the party system was "corrupt" and "has to be completely overhauled from the bottom up."
His life story became the subject of the 2010 HBO movie You Don't Know Jack, which earned actor Al Pacino Emmy and Golden Globe awards for his portrayal of Kevorkian. Pacino paid tribute to Kevorkian during his Emmy acceptance speech, saying that he had enjoyed trying to "portray someone as brilliant and interesting and unique" as Kevorkian and that it was a "pleasure to know him".
Kevorkian said he liked the movie and enjoyed the attention it generated, but doubted it would inspire much action by a new generation of assisted-dying advocates.
"You'll hear people say, 'Well, it's in the news again, it's time for discussing this further.' No it isn't. It's been discussed to death," he said. "There's nothing new to say about it. It's a legitimate ethical medical practice, as it was in ancient Rome and Greece."
Eleven years earlier he was sentenced in relation to the 1998 death of a amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – or Lou Gehrig's disease – patient, a videotaped death shown to a national television audience as Kevorkian challenged prosecutors to charge him.
"The issue's got to be raised to the level where it is finally decided," he said.
For nearly a decade, he escaped authorities' efforts to stop him. His first four trials, all on assisted-dying charges, resulted in three acquittals and one mistrial.
Murder charges in earlier cases were thrown out because Michigan at that time had no law against assisted-dying. The legislature wrote one in response to Kevorkian. He was stripped of his medical licence.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment