Dr. Jack Kevorkian will be paroled in June
Nothingman54
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By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN - Associated Press Writer
LANSING, Mich.(AP) After more than eight years in prison, a frail Dr. Jack Kevorkian will be paroled in June with a promise that he won't assist in any more suicides, a prison spokesman said Wednesday.
Leo Lalonde, the corrections spokesman, would not provide further details.
Kevorkian, once the nation's most vocal advocate of assisted suicide for the terminally ill, is serving a 10- to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder in the 1998 poisoning of Thomas Youk, 52, Oakland County man with Lou Gehrig's disease. Michigan banned assisted suicide in 1998.
Youk's death was videotaped and shown on CBS' "60 Minutes."
Kevorkian, who claimed to have assisted in at least 130 deaths in the 1990s, called it a mercy killing.
Mayer Morganroth, Kevorkian's attorney, said this summer that Kevorkian, now 78, was suffering from hepatitis C and diabetes, that his weight had dropped to 113 pounds and that he had less than a year to live.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm ordered corrections authorities to carry out an independent medical evaluation of Kevorkian, but did not commute the retired pathologist's sentence, as Morganroth had hoped.
Kevorkian has always been eligible for parole on June 1, 2007, and will now be released on that date, Lalonde said. He directed calls seeking further comment to Russ Marlan, another state corrections spokesman who did not immediately return calls Wednesday.
If Kevorkian is released on June 1, he will have spent close to 3,000 days in prison since being sentenced in April 1999.
He has promised he would not assist in a suicide if he was released from prison.
I guess my question is do you think his time was served? Or do you think he never should have gone to jail in the first place?
LANSING, Mich.(AP) After more than eight years in prison, a frail Dr. Jack Kevorkian will be paroled in June with a promise that he won't assist in any more suicides, a prison spokesman said Wednesday.
Leo Lalonde, the corrections spokesman, would not provide further details.
Kevorkian, once the nation's most vocal advocate of assisted suicide for the terminally ill, is serving a 10- to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder in the 1998 poisoning of Thomas Youk, 52, Oakland County man with Lou Gehrig's disease. Michigan banned assisted suicide in 1998.
Youk's death was videotaped and shown on CBS' "60 Minutes."
Kevorkian, who claimed to have assisted in at least 130 deaths in the 1990s, called it a mercy killing.
Mayer Morganroth, Kevorkian's attorney, said this summer that Kevorkian, now 78, was suffering from hepatitis C and diabetes, that his weight had dropped to 113 pounds and that he had less than a year to live.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm ordered corrections authorities to carry out an independent medical evaluation of Kevorkian, but did not commute the retired pathologist's sentence, as Morganroth had hoped.
Kevorkian has always been eligible for parole on June 1, 2007, and will now be released on that date, Lalonde said. He directed calls seeking further comment to Russ Marlan, another state corrections spokesman who did not immediately return calls Wednesday.
If Kevorkian is released on June 1, he will have spent close to 3,000 days in prison since being sentenced in April 1999.
He has promised he would not assist in a suicide if he was released from prison.
I guess my question is do you think his time was served? Or do you think he never should have gone to jail in the first place?
I'll be back
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b. it was right to send him to prison.
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=272825
agreed.
he didnt do anything wrong
exactly. he helped people die with dignity when they were terminally ill and in pain. i believe the last person he helped was suffering from lou gehrig's disease, which is one of the worst things you can possibly imagine. kevorkian is a saint in my book.
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
ya know, I was thinkin the same thing. You'd have to think if he was doin pretty shitty that he's gonna do himself in, right?
I don't think he did anything wrong. My mother recently died from emphysema and it was very painful watching her suffer, in and out of the hospital and nursing homes. Why? Because the rest of my family(especially my dad) were too selfish and uninformed to let her die at home with hospice, which would have made it so much easier for her. So, what Kavourkian did was help these people who were suffering and had no one elso who understood what they were going through, to turn to, to end their pain and suffering. I don't think that i personally could perform the mercy killings, but i can tell you that i wish that my mom wouldn't have had to suffer so long. She was on a respirator for 14 days, which means having to lay on your back the whole time. I guess because the bp drops when you put them on their side. So, as a result of that, she had the most horribly painful bed sore which she said was the most pain she had ever endured. They were giving her so much pain and nerve medication just to help, but it only just took the edge off. I believe that it was the bed sore that finally took her. She had got a blood infection and there was nothing else they could do for her. They told us that a healthy 30 yr old only has a fifty percent chance of surviving the infection. She was 70 and very ill, so they just gave her morphine and kept her comfortable until she passed.
I didn't mean to get so deep, but i just wanted to give you guys my point of view. She went through un-needed hell. I tried to tell my family, but i'm the "black sheep", and "i don't know anything". So, they never listen to me.
I love my mom, she was a strong woman. God rest her soul.
I am so sorry for your loss. It is precisely these kind of stories that cause me to be so passionate about peoples' right to die with dignity instead of our obsession with prolonging life at whatever cost.
As far as I'm concerned, he's a hero. I hope that the laws will be changed before I or any of my loved ones find ourselves in a similar situation, but unfortunately I don't think it's likely. I will never understand why people find it necessary to prolong a person's suffering.
oh really? Then why is he in jail?
You prob mean, you don't consider what he did to be wrong. i consider it to be wrong. Difference of opinion.
I watched my grandmother, grandfather and aunt die from cancer so I can understand why people would want to use his service. But I just don't feel a physician should do what he did.
He was in jail because people who are opposed to self-determination, choice, and the right to die with dignity took it upon themselves to legislate their twisted notion of the sanctity of life at any and every cost.
you have to be a special kind of doctor/person to risk you entire career..your entire lifes work because you care this much about a person you may not even know, but to know you don't want them to suffer and to know that they know what they want.
he went to jail because people don't worry about themselves, and don't respect themselves, setting laws against something that doesnt concern them.
oh and dont twist my words around...i meant he did nothing wrong.
because he didn't...its not opinion...you can twist whatever you want around..but to damn a hero is wrong...
oh and matisyahu isnt that great
dork
you're assuming a right to die exists. And legally (which is why Kevorkian went to jail) it is very difficult to prove.
Also, i guess since i am affiliated with the medical profession I have a huge problem with a physician helping someone die. The American Medical Association's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, in accordance with the Hippocratic Oath, has held that physicians may intend to save lives and relieve suffering, but they may not intend as their primary purpose the deaths of their patients.
Now if someone wants to OD on antifreeze / drugs (that they obtained some other way) or blow their brains out, that's their decision. My opinion is that a medical professional should not help that end be met, as in assisted suicide. I'm not even getting into the right to die debate here, b/c i know where people stand and it's not worth it. My problem is with a medical professional doing it.
yes you do have to be "special"...being special doesn't make it right. Like I said,I understand why people would want to do that. It's not me being callous; i have an issue with the medical community partaking in it.
a hero...are you delussional?
what the hell does matisyahu have to do with anything?
knock knock, anybody home?? hello?? newsflash: everybody dies. and the people kevorkian was helping to die were terminally ill, which means death was inevitable and they were suffering. they didn't want to suffer anymore so they went to him for help. it's the humane thing to do rather than let someone lay on their death bed in pain and agony with no hope of recovering. why can't people like you get that through your head?? get real.
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
Fair enough. How do you feel about hospice programs? Clearly their intent is to relieve suffering, but just as clearly their intent is not to "save lives" but rather to make the inevitable more tolerable.
if you're so terminal that there's no hope and you want to die, end your life...I have an issue with a physician or helping to end someones life.
the other foot in the gutter
sweet smell that they adore
I think I'd rather smother
-The Replacements-
I think hospice is great. I'm not advocating that people shouldn't be comforted or be made comfortable for their last days or when the cancer is so painful it hurts to do anythin, i've SEEN it happen to people I love. To me I draw the line with ending the suffering (through forced death). I also think that if it's inevitable a.k.a machine is breathing for someone, there is no brain activity etc... that they should remove care. There's a difference b/t letting nature take it's course (removing care and someone can't survive on their own) and forcing natures hand (medically speaking).