Dr. Jack Kevorkian was a man who had a dream. His dream was controversial and perhaps a bit scary and twisted to many, but also his idea made sense to a lot of people. Kevorkian originally performed experiments on consenting death row convicts while they were unconscious only to give them a fatal injection later and kill them.
This led Kevorkian to a new development in his medical field of interest: death. He now saw that he could expand his experiments to include the killing of willing patients seeking death, also known as mercy killing or euthanasia. The Mercitron was his eventual conception designed to give his patients a self induced and painless death. Perhaps the most important design incorporated into this machine was its ability for the patients to kill themselves directly with the push of a button which induced a coma and later injected a heart-stopping drug.
When considering patients, Kevorkian had some required prerequisits he always demanded. First, he made sure that people wanting death had tried every other medical way of curing their illness including experimental and newly developing medical theories such as the new THA ALzheimers drug that he suggested to his eventual first patient, Janet Adkins. The new medicines did not work and after finding out from Adkins and her husband supported her assisted death, he let her use his Mercitron.
In Michigan where Kevorkian was practicing euthanasia, people started to oppose his death dealing and accused his actions of being immoral as well as violating the Hippocratic Law of doctors stating that no doctor can assist a patient and help them towards death.
Eventually, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was brought to court on charges of first degree murder. Kevorkian was acquitted because there was no law that made induced death illegal in Michigan and the fact that Kevorkian's patients wished for their own death. Kevorkian was summoned to court several more times on the same charges and was acquitted each time by the same principles that saved him last time.
Dr. Kevorkian came upon Thomas Youk who suffered from Lou Gehrigs disease and wished to die. Kevorkian and Youk even allowed the TV program "60 Minutes" to film the process. Dr. Kevorkian administered a lethal injection to Youk personally this time and was charged with second degree murder. In a sense, he incriminated himself, allowing himself to be filmed killing Youk himself by injecting him with the lethal injection and was sent to jail. Kevorkian remains in jail today.
Many people support Kevorkian and his idea of euthanasia and mercy killing and there are also many who oppose Kevorkian calling his actions unethical and that no person despite their condition should be killed unnaturally. They believe that the only death is a death unassisted or a natural death. I believe that people should not be killed just because they want to end their suffering or for any other matter. Everyone has a right to life and that right should not be taken away, even by themselves. Also, we must examine the mental capabilities of the person wishing for death and understand their circumstances. I realize that death does sound like a very good option for people who need escape from things they are troubled by or are suffering on account of, but death is not the right escape. This issue is troubling however because there really is not a better alternative besides just dealing with the pain and dying a natural death. Without a doubt, the issue will come up many times in the future and we must be prepared to deal with it.
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