Kevorkian’s cause founders as he’s freed

Associated Press
05/27/2007

By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer

For nearly a decade, Dr. Jack Kevorkian waged a
defiant campaign to help other people kill themselves.
The retired pathologist left bodies at hospital
emergency rooms and motels and videotaped a death that
was broadcast on CBS’ "60 Minutes." His actions
prompted battles over assisted suicide in many states.
But as he prepares to leave prison June 1 after
serving more than eight years of a 10- to 25-year
sentence in the death of a Michigan man, Kevorkian
will find that there’s still only one state that has a
law allowing physician-assisted suicide – Oregon.

Experts say that’s because abortion opponents,
Catholic leaders, advocates for the disabled and often
doctors have fought the efforts of other states to
follow the lead of Oregon, where the law took effect
in late 1997.

Opponents defeated a measure in Vermont this year and
are fighting similar efforts in California. Bills have
failed in recent years in Hawaii, Wisconsin and
Washington state, and ballot measures were defeated
earlier by voters in Washington, California, Michigan
and Maine.

Kevorkian’s release could spur another round of
efforts, if only to prevent anyone else from following
his example.

"One of the driving forces of the (Oregon) law was to
prevent the Jack Kevorkians from happening," said Kate
Davenport, a communications specialist at the Death
with Dignity National Center in Portland, Ore., which
defended Oregon’s law against challenges.

"It wasn’t well regulated or sane," she said. "There
were just too many potential pitfalls."

Kevorkian, 79, was criticized even by assisted suicide
supporters because of his unconventional practices.

He used a machine he’d invented to administer fatal
drugs and dropped off bodies at hospital emergency
rooms or coroner’s offices, or left them to be
discovered in the motel rooms where he often met those
who wanted his help.

At the time, some doctors didn’t want to give dying
patients too much pain medication, fearing they’d be
accused of hastening death.

Oregon law allows only terminally ill, mentally
competent adults who can self-administer the
medication to ask a physician to prescribe life-ending
drugs, and they must make that request once in writing
and twice orally.

Oregon’s experience shows that only a tiny percentage
of people will ever choose to quicken their death,
said Sidney Wanzer, a retired Massachusetts doctor who
has been a leader in the right-to-die movement.

>From the time the law took effect in 1997 until the
end of last year, 292 people asked their doctors to
prescribe the drugs they would need to end their
lives, an average of just over 30 a year. Most of the
46 people who used the process last year had cancer,
and their median age was 74, according to a state
report.

Experts say the attention on assisted suicide has
helped raise awareness caring for the terminally ill.

"End-of-life care has increased dramatically" in
Oregon with more hospice referrals and better pain
management, says Valerie Vollmar, a professor at
Oregon’s Willamette University College of Law who
writes extensively on physician-assisted death.

Opponents and supporters of physician-assisted death
say more needs to be done to offer hospice care and
pain treatment for those who are dying and suffering
from debilitating pain.

"The solution here is not to kill people who are
getting inadequate pain management, but to remove
barriers to adequate pain management," said Burke
Balch, director of the Powell Center for Medical
Ethics at the National Right to Life Committee, which
opposes assisted suicide.

"We need to come up with better solutions to human
suffering and human need," Balch said.

More end-of-life care is needed, but doctors should
have a right to assist those who ask for their help in
dying, Wanzer said.

"There are a handful of patients who have the best of
care, everything has been done right, but they still
suffer. And it’s this person I think should have the
right to say, `This is not working and I want to die
sooner,’" Wanzer said.

Kevorkian has promised he’ll never again advise or
counsel anyone about assisted suicide once he’s out of
prison. But his attorney, Mayer Morganroth, said
Kevorkian isn’t going to stop pushing for more laws
allowing it.

The state wants to go after money that Kevorkian makes
following his release to help cover the cost of his
incarceration. Morganroth has said his client has been
offered as much as $100,000 to speak. Many of those
speeches are expected to be on assisted suicide.

"It’s got to be legalized," Kevorkian said in a phone
interview from prison aired by a Detroit TV station on
Monday. "I’ll work to have it legalized. But I won’t
break any laws doing it."

___

On the Net:

Death With Dignity National Center:

Vollmar’s physician-assisted suicide Web site:

National Right to Life Committee:

To Die Well:

/ap/20070527/ap_on_re_us/kevorkian_s_release