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On the Subject(s) of Jack Kevorkian, M.D.: A Retrospective Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1998

TOM KOCH
TOM KOCH
Affiliation:
The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto; David-See-Chai Lam Centre for International Communications, Simon Fraser University, Harbour Centre, Vancouver, Canada
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Abstract

To those defining euthanasia as a battle for the principle of self-determination, persons seeking physician assisted death (PAD) are soldiers in the fight for patient autonomy. The reasons they seek it, or the potential of other, non-life-threatening interventions is less important than this principle: individuals have the right not only to choose death (suicide), but to be assisted in dying. They should not be second guessed or denied on the basis of another's distaste for that decision. This paper offers a general review of deaths attributed to Dr. Jack Kevorkian's PAD practice in an attempt to answer two questions: Why do persons seek physician assisted death, and, to what extent does induced death seem, in retrospect, a reasonable and perhaps necessary medical response to specific patient complaints?

Type
PERSPECTIVES
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 1998 , pp. 436 - 441
Copyright
© 1998 Cambridge University Press

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