Jack Kevorkian
Jack Kevorkian, born in 1928 to Armenian immigrant parents, was a pathologist known for his controversial role in the assisted suicide movement. He graduated from medical school at the University of Michigan and became increasingly interested in the ethics of euthanasia after encountering terminally ill patients during his career. In 1987, he began advertising himself as a "physician consultant for death counseling" and subsequently created a device called the Thanatron, which facilitated assisted suicides. Kevorkian gained significant media attention after he assisted the first public suicide using this machine in 1990.
Over the next eight years, he was linked to the deaths of around 130 individuals, leading to numerous legal battles that sparked national debates about the morality of assisted dying. His actions were polarizing; some viewed him as a pioneer advocating for the rights of terminally ill patients, while others condemned him as a murderer. In 1999, he was convicted of second-degree murder for his role in one assisted suicide, resulting in a prison sentence. Kevorkian's legacy continues to evoke discussions about individual autonomy, the ethics of assisted dying, and the complexities surrounding end-of-life care.
Subject Terms
Jack Kevorkian
American pathologist and advocate of physician-assisted suicide
- Born: May 26, 1928
- Birthplace: Pontiac, Michigan
- Died: June 3, 2011
- Place of death: Royal Oak, Michigan
Also known as: Dr. Death
Major offense: Second-degree murder and administering a controlled substance
Active: 1990-1998
Locale: Primarily Michigan
Sentence: Ten to twenty-five years; concurrent three to seven years for administering a controlled substance
Early Life
Jack Kevorkian (keh-VOHRK-ee-uhn) was born in 1928 to Armenian immigrants who were survivors of the genocidal holocaust directed against their people by the Turks in 1915. He had two sisters, Flora and Margo. His father, Levon, was an automobile factory worker and later an excavator. Kevorkian was raised in Armenian Orthodoxy, but he later abandoned his religious faith.
As a child, Kevorkian was an avid reader and baseball fan. He was a studious pupil at Pontiac High School and won National Honor Society awards. In 1945, he enrolled in the University of Michigan, graduating from its medical school in 1952 with a speciality in pathology, the study of determining causes of death and disease by investigating the tissue of deceased persons.
Kevorkian then took an internship at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital, where he was struck by the condition of a terminally ill woman. He later reported feeling an overwhelming empathy for her and attaining an epiphany about the morality and ethics of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia.
In 1953, Kevorkian served as a medical officer in the Korean War. Upon his discharge, he returned to Michigan to practice at Pontiac General, Detroit Receiving, and the University of Michigan Medical Center. In 1954, he published his research on photographing people’s eyes at the moment of death to help physicians distinguish between coma and death. In 1958, he advocated using condemned prisoners for medical research; the resulting controversy led to the loss of his university residency. In 1961, Kevorkian pursued the possibility of using corpses as sources for blood transfusions. In 1968, he published an article in which he praised Nazi physicians for trying to garner some positive outcomes from the concentration camps.
Kevorkian later left Pontiac General and eventually took a position at Saratoga General Hospital in 1970. He decided to remain a bachelor after he broke off an engagement and continued to pursue his artistic interests alongside his professional ones. Kevorkian’s interests in art further demonstrated his interest in the morbid and grisly. In an adult education art class, he created graphic and surreal tableaus depicting cadavers, skulls, dismemberment, and cannibalism.
Criminal Career
In 1976, Kevorkian quit his job at Saratoga and moved to Los Angeles to make a film of George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah (1741). The film failed, and by 1979 he was back in Michigan working at various hospitals. He continued to publish his ideas about medical ethics and euthanasia in the German journal Medicine and Law. In 1987, he advertised his services as a “physician consultant for death counseling,” and he continued to publish his ideas about clinics for planned suicides and medical research on the patients.
In 1989, Kevorkian built his first “suicide machine” to assist the death of David Rivlin, a quadriplegic who had publicly requested to be removed from life support. The machine, which Kevorkian called the Thanatron, allowed the patient to activate a lethal injection through intravenous tubing. Although Rivlin rejected Kevorkian’s assistance and eventually had his life support removed by another physician, Kevorkian sought other patients to test the Thanatron.
On June 4, 1990, Janet Adkins, a fifty-four-year-old Alzheimer’s patient, was the first person to use Kevorkian’s machine to self-inflict death. The state of Michigan brought charges against Kevorkian immediately. A judge enjoined Kevorkian from assisting further suicides, but the murder charge against the pathologist for Adkins’s death was dismissed.
Legal Action and Outcome
Between 1990 and 1998, Kevorkian attended the suicides of 130 people, adding to his armamentarium a gas mask designed to facilitate the inhalation of carbon monoxide. During that time, Kevorkian’s license to practice medicine was revoked by Michigan’s state board, and charges against the pathologist were brought up and dismissed. He was then acquitted in another case, and he continued his work. Kevorkian was acquitted or had a mistrial on no fewer than four separate occasions during this time. Other judges dismissed charges against him. The social and legal storm about the issues of privacy, individual liberty, value of life, and other core cultural issues continued to surround Kevorkian.
Kevorkian often sought public platforms to espouse his views about assisted suicide. In 1998, he appeared on the television series 60 Minutes and showed a videotape of the lethal injection of Thomas Youk, a victim of Lou Gehrig’s disease. The bold move led to charges against Kevorkian of second-degree murder and administration of a controlled substance. On March 26, 1999, a Michigan jury convicted the former physician. Judge Jessica Cooper sentenced Kevorkian to ten to twenty-five years in prison, with a concurrent sentence of three to seven years for administering a controlled substance. His parole eligibility was scheduled to come up in 2007.
Impact
Jack Kevorkian is seen as a serial murderer by some people and as a pioneer for individual liberty by others. His repeated confounding of the Michigan prosecutors certainly added to his appeal for some of his defenders, who consider him a principled advocate for the rights of suffering people to make their own decisions about when they die. His detractors point to his morbid paintings and his death-focused research. Kevorkian’s practice of assisting patients in ending their lives has provoked cultural and legal debates about the sanctity of life and self-determinism. He continued to challenge his conviction and in 2000 received an award from the Gleitsman Foundation for Civil Activism.
Bibliography
Betzold, Michael. Appointment with Dr. Death. Troy, Mich.: Momentum Books, 1993. A journalist with the Detroit Free Press covered the Kevorkian story and provides a history of the physician’s career and assisted suicide advocacy.
Loving, Carol. My Son, My Sorrow: A Mother’s Plea to Dr. Kevorkian. East Rutherford, N.J.: New Horizon Press, 1998. A mother of a young man who had Lou Gehrig’s disease recounts her story of how her son’s death was assisted by Kevorkian. The author supports Kevorkian’s efforts.
Nicol, Neal, Harry Wylie, Cheeni Rao, and Jack Kevorkian. Between the Dying and the Dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s Life and the Battle to Legalize Euthanasia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. Relates personal, firsthand accounts gleaned from interviews with Kevorkian.