Physician Assisted Suide

28 Pages 6902 Words

ottles connected to an IV. In the three bottles were saline solution, a sedative, and potassium chloride (Gay 45). When the patients felt they were ready to begin the process, they turned the machine on themselves and were first put to sleep by the sedative and then killed by the potassium chloride. According to one source, when people began hearing about the emergence of Dr. Kevorkian and his "suicide machine", many terminally ill patients began to fear their physician. The patients started believing that all physicians were out to assist them to death or try to talk them into physician-assisted suicide (Thomas 14). According to Kathlyn Gay, Kevorkian claimed that he had caused no death; he just helped with his patient's "last civil rights." He believes that doctors that don't help assist their patients are like the Nazi doctors during World War 2, those who used experiments on the Jewish people (50-51).
In a magazine article by James F. Keenan, he reports that, "Anyone familiar with Jack Kevorkian, M.D., who travels around the Michigan area providing physician-assisted suicide, ought not be surprised at the number of women he has helped die. Out of 43 deaths, 15 of his 'patients' were men, 28 were women" (Keenan 15). It was also reported by Keenan that Kevorkian's male patients had severe terminal illnesses that left them incapable of living, while the female patients suffered from breast cancer and other illnesses that are curable (16). In many cases involving female patients wanting to use Physician-Assisted suicide, it was found that most people felt their request was "emotional, unreflective, and immature" (Keenan 16). Many people were angered at what Kevorkian was doing and felt that he wasn't assisting the terminally ill. They believed that people should and could find an alternative method of relief for their illnesses (Gay 47). The Detroit Press reported that on, June 4, 1990, Janet Elaine Adkins, became the first patient Dr...