[Right_to_die] What did Dr Kevorkian achieve ? Differing views

[World right-to-die news list (nonprofit)]

FILM REVIEW by Richard Cote

“YOU DON’T KNOW JACK”


In “You Don’t Know Jack,” Dr. Jack Kevorkian (played by Al Pacino), a 
made-for-television HBO movie, was broadcast in the U.S. on April 24.

Its story opens when the unemployed Michigan pathologist, age 60, had 
found his new calling: hastening the death of patients suffering from 
intolerable pain or loss of autonomy. The media leaped on the story, and 
soon he had his first patient. On June 4, 1990, with Kevorkian at her 
side, Janet Adkins, terminally ill with Alzheimer’s disease, pushed the 
red button on his “Thanatron,” a lethal injection machine he had 
designed, and died quickly and without pain. Over an eight-year period, 
Kevorkian assisted the suicide of over 130 suffering people.

Kevorkian’s career ended forever with Thomas Youk’s death on September 
17, 1998. Instead of assisting Youk take his own life, as he had with 
the others, Kevorkian personally injected him with lethal drugs, filmed 
himself doing so, and handed over the videotape to the CBS news program, 
60 Minutes. That led to a murder trial, and on April 13, 1999, he was 
convicted of second-degree murder. He was freed June 1, 2007. Today he 
is 82 years old, spry, and as feisty and contentious as ever.
“You Don’t Know Jack” is a commercial feature entertainment film - not a 
rigorous documentary - about Kevorkian.

It is designed to entertain and inform, and does so fairly well.  He is 
portrayed as an ascetic, intellectually brilliant, artistic, 
multi-talented, emotionally isolated, death-fixated zealot (his own 
word) with a small cadre of intensely close and protective friends and a 
personal mission to end needless end-of-life suffering through 
physician-assisted suicide.

Kevorkian had no use for any views not of his own creation. In 2009 when 
I asked him, “will you work to extend laws like those in Washington 
state and Oregon to other states,” he replied, “That would be like a law 
extending torture. It’s crazy. [Euthanasia] has nothing to do with law.

Those three states—Washington, Oregon and Montana—are doing it wrong.”
The world’s pro-euthanasia leaders have strong views about him today.

Jacqueline Jencquel, Secretary-General of ADMD-France, said that “I 
personally don't think that he made our cause advance, because he was 
perceived as a madman. I hope the movie will show him as he is: a brave 
man who wanted to change a medieval legislation.”

Derek Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society and author of the 
bestseller “Final Exit” said, “Kevorkian can be credited with informing 
huge numbers of people about euthanasia, but his hasty methods troubled 
the medical profession and he did nothing to put in place sound laws for 
physician-assisted suicide.”

Dr. Hugh T. Wynne, of Scotland, past-president of the World Federation 
of Right to Die Societies, wrote that “the TV broadcast of the [Youk] 
euthanasia went too far, and gave scope for his critics to write off his 
achievements.”

Lesley Martin, Trustee of the Dignity New Zealand Trust, sees Kevorkian 
as a euthanasia outlaw. “Has he hindered the right-to-die movement? Yes, 
by giving the impression to both the casual and discerning observor of 
this issue, that all proponents of assisted dying support operating 
illegitimately as he did.”

Dr. Lawrence D. Egbert, former Medical Director of The Final Exit 
Network, thinks Kevorkian was an effective bullhorn. “By his flagrant 
behavior, he became notorious, people talked about him, and people 
continue to talk about physician involvement at the end of life.”

Did Kevorkian deliver the right message in the 1990s: that the right to 
die with dignity should be recognized as an inalienable civil right? 
Yes. Was he the right messenger to deliver it then? That is debatable. 
Is he the right messenger to deliver it now? Probably not. He is no 
longer assisting suicides, and generates little publicity, except for 
that which will follow this film. Neither is he an influential voice 
within the international right-to-die movement or a member of any of its 
organizations. His fame is in the past, and his ability to influence the 
future of the movement seems also to be over.

The most important positive potential of this film is to introduce the 
death-with-dignity concept to new, younger audience, and that would be 
welcomed by the right-to-die community. In the meantime, get your 
popcorn, find a good seat, and enjoy the story.

-- Richard N. Cote’ author of “In Search of Gentle Death: The Fight For 
Your Right To Die With Dignity” (www.insearchofgentledeath.com)

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