Creative Writing Right to Decide: Dr. Jack Kevorkian

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Let the patients decide!
The ethical dilemma as regards to assisted suicide is indeed unequivocal as far as the debates behind Dr. Kevorkian’s motive in his outspoken and vivid practice of helping patients kill themselves. The big question that still lingers in many is whether Dr. Kevorkian and many other physicians who actively helped patients to kill themselves were in rivals to moral medical practice or friends of the same (White, 2009). Dr. Kevorkian will go down in the world history of medical practice as a champion of euthanasia whose legacy not only affected the ethical consideration in medicine but also sparked legal discussions concerning euthanasia toa in America and around the world. As such, based on the moral foundation theory as it relates to medical practice, this paper seeks to establish whether Dr. Kevorkian was driven by both care and fairness as he felt essential to choose when and how his patients would die.
Debate on the right to die is a highly controversial social issue. Particularly, patient-assisted suicide (PAS) is a social issue that has been avoided by medical practitioners for time. By 1990, most countries had not encountered such issues concerning patients killing themselves and, therefore, did not have legal matters to handle such cases or prohibit patients from PASCITATION Mar141 \p 1560 \l 1033 (Day, Fiske and Downing 1560). Dr. Jack Kevorkian commonly referred to as the doctor of death was the first person to publicly address PAS. He brought out the issue through a series of assisted deaths that greatly impacted on the right to die debate. Therefore, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was portrayed as morally culpable, incompetent and was viewed negatively by the larger community. The outcomes of Kevorkian actions have brought a new public policy that hinders terminally and ill individuals from having desirable choices like PAS and voluntary euthanasia.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian also referred to as a specialist for “death counseling” and the person who introduced the suicide machine received his first patient, Janet Adkins, a 54-year-old who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Janet sought Kevorkian’s advice to help her commit suicide, a choice she made after her health condition deteriorated. Kevorkian instructed Adkins to activate the homemade tool he had constructed and the machine would administer a lethal drug that would end her from suffering. Her life ended upon using the machine she was instructed by Kevorkian to use. Following Jane Adkin’s death, the society and the medical community, national public and state criticized Dr. Kevorkian negatively and eliciting negative comments on PAS. Kevorkian’s actions were considered uncompassionate and unfavorable. Kevorkian was then charged with second murder degree after terminating the life of Adkins in 1990. The Michigan Board of Medicine voted unanimously to indefinitely suspend Kevorkian’s medical license after assisting two other women to commit suicideCITATION Hen121 \p 206 \l 1033 (Hosseini 206). This was his second time to be accused of assisted murder. However, legal measures could not be taken against him because the law had not prohibited PA...