Jack Kevorkian
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Synonyms
Definition
A physical best known for his work in assisting suicide.
Introduction
Occasionally, history conveniently presents us with an event or a movement personified by a single man or woman. Such an occasion is the melding of Dr. Jack Kevorkian with the physician-assisted suicide (PAS) movement in the 1990s. Pathologist, author, musician, and painter, he is best remembered for having escorted at least 130 patients to their death by assisted suicide and euthanasia.
His Armenian parents had fled persecution in the Turkish Ottoman Empire and immigrated to Pontiac, Michigan, where he was born on May 26, 1928. He attended the University of Michigan Medical School from where he graduated in 1952. Subsequent to graduation he entertained several radical ideas, including using death row inmates for medical experimentation, and transferring cadaver blood into living recipients, including himself (Nicol and Wylie 2006).
In 1990, he met a 54-year-old...
Keywords
Lethal Dose Potassium Chloride Television Show Assisted Suicide Medical LicenseReferences
- Jackson, N. (2011). Jack Kevorkian’s Death Van and the Tech of Assisted Suicide. The Atlantic Monthly, June 3, 2011.Google Scholar
- Lessenberry, J. (1994). Death becomes him. Vanity Fair, July, 1994.Google Scholar
- Nicol, N., & Wylie, H. (2006). Between the dying and the dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s life and battle to legalize Euthanasia. Madison: University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
- Schneider, K. (2011). Dr. Jack Kevorkian dies at 83; “A Doctor Who Helped End Lives.” The New York Times, June 3, 2011.Google Scholar