Peacefully, in a hospital bed. He obviously had his issues, but it was what was really crazy is that people suffering and in pain had nobody other than an obvious crackpot to help them end their lives with a tiny bit of dignity. Here’s an open thread in memory of a very strange man who did some good.
Kevorkian Dead
by Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix| 55 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
WereBear
A nice summing up.
The tragedy was that I think he wanted to do good; yet he wound up helping people die who were NOT terminally ill, IIRC.
Though they were suffering; and our stupid drug laws kept them from the help they needed. The new emphasis on pain management is partly due to him.
Cacti
Kevorkian’s most positive legacy is that he forced the country to have a conversation about a previously taboo topic.
Just Some Fuckhead
I think he just liked to watch people die. Did he record his own death?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Imagine the look on the little girl’s face the day she realizes that she’s not going to get to be on Dancing With the Stars or a reality show like her older sister.
Something tells me that this one won’t be graduating from high school on time with her class like her oldest brother and sister.
Palin/Trump 2012!
kdaug
My definition of hell on earth is a Shaivo-esqe existence on life support for years, with no chance of recovery, draining my families’ resources that could be better spent on the living.
YMMV.
alwhite
There is a new case, just recently, of a woman charged for providing the tools to end it all to people. So the debate will continue.
If your pet were terminal you might agonize over the choice, you might weep and fret, but at some point you would know that the poor thing suffering is not living a life worth living and you would end the pain and misery. But if it was you that is terminal and the pain unbearable, well thats just too damn bad.
Linda Featheringill
Has our society reached the point where only crazy people try to do good or is it that trying to do good in this society drives you crazy?
It seems he had a peaceful death. Good.
RIP.
Bruce S
Kevorkian may have been a crank, but the REAL sociopaths we still have with us…
http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/06/are-you-lookin-at-me.html
kdaug
@alwhite:
Second-amendment remedy?
Gin & Tonic
My elderly and infirm (at that time) mother thought he was a hero.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
There are very, very few people willing to do anything to help those that are suffering.
The number of those who are willing to go to jail for it I can count on the fingers of one hand.
Call him a crackpot if you will. He will someday be remembered as a saint.
PeakVT
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: If looks could kill, Our Grifter-in-Chief would be a pile of hamburger right now.
4jkb4ia
Noted without comment. No, 4jkb4ia has never established a record on this blog of being obsessive-compulsive about ANYTHING. /s
(Summary: Palin is not behaving at any of her stops as though she really is on vacation.)
Cris
As my grandmother lay in hospice, waiting for her organs to finish failing, she said to my mother, “I wish Dr. Kevorkian was here.”
I think Cacti sums it up quite nicely.
Chrisd
In a related vein, my state–Ohio–is committed to cracking down on the prescription drug abuse “epidemic”. Docs are going to be leery treating patients with chronic pain, and that means undertreatment. Regrettable, perhaps, but a necessary trade-off in the all-important War on Drugs.
Steve
Kevorkian was a local celebrity where I grew up. Back during the height of the controversy, our heavily Republican county supported his cause by a 2-1 margin. The Republican county prosecutor got voted out of office because people were sick of him hounding the guy. Hard to believe he ended up going to prison for trying to help people have some dignity in their last hours.
Snarki, child of Loki
@kdaug: Well, of COURSE there’s a second amendment remedy.
and if the GOP has its way, that may be the only remedy left to you, so make sure to prepare a list of the people you want to accompany you on your journey to Valhalla, with special attention to those who made the trip inevitable.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
I might add that we as a society refuse to do for our loved ones what we would do – indeed, are required by law to do – for the animals that we eat, namely, insure that they have a quick and painless death.
Says a lot, and none of it good, that we treat our food better than we treat each other.
kerFuFFler
I fear that our country won’t have moved on this issue by the time I’m facing death. We’re so damn afraid of slippery slopes that we are stuck with extreme positions with no room for judgment, wisdom or compassion.
Martin
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: We should have a caption contest for that photo. My submission: “Seriously, is it too late for you to abort me?”
Paul in KY
@Martin: Mine is:
“I can’t believe I believed her when she said we were going to Disneyworld. I’m as stupid as her fans!”
Violet
@Martin:
“No more wire hangers, my ass.”
“I can’t wait to sell my memoirs.”
“Keep it up, mom. The October surprise is even better when it’s from family.”
“You’ll look nice when I put you in a home.”
geg6
I respect and admire the very eccentric Dr.Kevorkian. He truly was devoted to allowing people in great need and pain to end their lives in dignity and on their own terms. His work has changed end of life medicine and law. Having taken my mother through a long, difficult death but one in which she chose her own moment to stop all treatment and die with dignity, I support the notion that we should all choose, if physically and mentally possible, our own exit strategies.
Linda Featheringill
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Yeah! Who wants to enter Valhalla alone? Geez! :-)
Jay in Oregon
@PeakVT:
I’m holding out some hope that Piper will not turn out like Mama Grizzly or her eldest sister.
Pictures like that fill me with some hope, but she’s got a long way to go…
4jkb4ia
Andrea Hlavackova and Lucia Hradecka win the women’s doubles title. These two were the definition of journeypeople, never getting beyond the Round of 16 in any Grand Slam event before.
scarshapedstar
He was on Bill Maher not too long ago. He was frickin’ awesome, very witty and unapologetic. A crackpot, in my mind, is someone with a thousand-yard stare who can’t explain wtf they’re rambling about.
Exhibit A.
JustPeachyAndYou
In our family, we have always been disgusted by the fact that we can help our very ill pets to die peacefully and comfortably, but humans must be kept alive, in pain or drugged to insensibility or brain-dead, until the basic biological mechanism finally wears out. Kevorkian opened an honest dialogue, and Schiavo caused many people to make living wills, but we’ve got a long way to go.
And don’t even get me started on humane pain management.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
A guy who believed people should be granted the same relief from suffering we regularly give our housepets is not a crackpot.
A guy who believes women should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term regardless of her wishes and should be subjected to government scrutiny to make sure she does so … THAT’S a crackpot.
Rest in Peace, doctor.
Fortygeek
@Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory:
This.
ETA…my dad has said something along those lines as long as I can remember.
Elie
@geg6:
To me, this is the crux: He facilitated the control of this decision to be placed more in the hands of the individual and his/her family. Where it should be. A private, personal decision that should not be abridged by religion or government. Personal, private.
WyldPirate
@Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory:
You summed it up, Whiskey Screams. Kevorkian wasn’t a crackpot.
People spend years in anguished misery–both physical and mental–and never get relief from it. Who the fuck is the “state” to tell you when you are sick and tired of living with the pain and misery and choose to turn out your own lights.
MBunge
Anybody who thinks Kevorkian was a saint or the issue of assisted suicide is simple should ask themselves a question. Did none of Kevorkian’s clients have access to a working automobile and a garage?
Mike
Pococurante
What makes him a crackpot? Not getting it…
Steve
@MBunge: I think you’re not as far ahead of the rest of us in your thinking as you believe you are. The entire point of Kevorkian’s work is that some people want to die with a little more dignity than being found dead in your garage one day.
Elliecat
@WereBear:
yeah, this is where I part ways with so many on the left. We accuse the right of seeing things in black and white but on this, there often seems a distinterest in shades of gray on the left.
yes, I always wonder why so many immediately accept that suffering calls for death rather than discussing how we can alleviate suffering.
I wish the discussion about these subjects on the left could be more complex than kneejerk support for assisted suicide and, apparently, euthanasia, since I don’t know what else Shiavo was about.
Persia
@Elliecat:
Same here. And remember a lot of seriously/terminally ill people don’t want to be ‘a burden’ on their families. In this country, if you’re seriously ill and you want your family to keep any money/time they have, you’re quite literally better off dead. That’s fucked.
Djur
There are a lot of Disability Rights blogs where you can find other people who believe that human biology, not cognition, creates personhood.
evinfuilt
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m neither old or infirm and I think he was a hero.
Ruckus
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Exactly.
@Steve:
No kidding.
Dying in a garage with the motor running, or with a shot to the head require someone to find the body and clean up afterwards. Dr. K wanted to provide another way to accomplish the same ends with dignity.
As someone who has had to make end of life decisions for another who was incapable I can say with assurance that I wished a better way than dope them up with morphine and pull up a chair. They will in fact be dead in a week but the only thing we can do is wait. It is quite disheartening.
evinfuilt
@Jay in Oregon:
She could be the next Reagen (well the good son.) Growing up in a family with a senile matriarch might drive someone to politics and do something good.
Ruckus
@Elliecat:
It is not a knee jerk call for assisted suicide. It is a call for those who have no possibility of living not to be forced to do so. It is not and should not be the only tool in the box but it should be in there.
Why is it any business of anyone else if I live or die? Why should it be the business of the state? A concern for sure but why does the decision belong to anyone else? Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. I have a right to pursue my life, all of it. I don’t control the start but as an adult why don’t I have the right to control the rest of it, including the end?
iPirate
A flawed hero.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Where have you gone, Doc Kevorkian?
A nation turns its aging eyes to you (Woo, woo, woo)
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson,
You’ll need the Doc, but now he’s gone away?
(Hey, hey, hey…hey, hey, hey)
BobbyV
Scene: Heaven’s Pearly Gates
St. Peter: Dr. Kevorkian, why do you hate Southern Baptists?
Dr. Kevorkian: But I don’t hate Southern Baptists. I just wish they’d been held underwater a few minutes longer.
Moik
Hey John, remember how great the microbrews are here in Wisconsin?
http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=33683
The Republicans (and three of the Democrats) are trying to screw over the microbreweries in favor of the megabreweries like Miller, and I don’t see how this could possibly end well for them. There’s going to be a protest here at the capitol in about an hour – you DO NOT fuck with us Wisconsinites’ beer.
maus
@Pococurante: Yeah,
is a real jerk move.
He’s not a quack, he was certainly eccentric, but who else would risk his life and career to bring the NECESSARY ethical questions and defend the right to die?
The same questions and issues happen in hospice care all the time already. When my father was dying of cancer and we didn’t want him suffering any more, the doctor ever so politely described how much more morphine drops we could give him to end it all.
Granted, my mother refused because she didn’t think that she could have ever lived with herself had she not waited that extra time, but if this was more out in the open, she wouldn’t have held that against herself as much and saved a month or two of pain, and terror for my father being trapped in a painful husk.
Make fun of him all you want, he bought into the “crazy” theme because he was brave enough to stand up to the system and people who would otherwise malign him as a demon. I’m sure it was a coping method more than anything else, why wouldn’t one turn to art and music when surrounded by sorrow and death?
maus
@Moik: @47:
The megabrewers screwed with Washington state’s liquor privatization enough that we voted against all the competing, hideously flawed initiatives and we’re still stuck with a terrible liquor control board and state-operated sales.
Catpause
@Gin & Tonic: My terminal mother also supported his work, as do I. She was a retired nurse from an epoch that saw more suffering than treatment. Ironically, in the catholic hospitals were she worked there were some doctors that practiced dignity in death to some small degree. History will judge Dr K favorably.
Moonbatman
He is a convicted criminal just like ACORN filmmaker James O’keefe.
Peace Out. The Power is Yours. Free Crystal Mangum
LT
Very well said, mistermix.
RossInDetroit
Saw this thread late. I met him a few years ago and signed his petition for candidacy for the Senate. We chatted a bit and he seemed just like any other kindly old man.
We live in a strange world.
robertdsc-PowerBook
RIP.
jim filyaw
go gentle, bro