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Kevorkian Vows to Push for Assisted Suicide Laws After Upcoming Prison Release

Helped kill at least 130 but released after serving only 8 years of 10-25 year sentence

By Gudrun Schultz

COLDWATER, Michigan, May 23, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Infamous euthanasia activist “Dr.” Jack Kevorkian has pledged to work towards getting assisted suicide legalized after his release from prison for the murder of a man with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Kevorkian admitted his intention of pursuing legalized assisted suicide, in a telephone interview with Michigan TV station WJBK. He was careful to say he would not break any laws in the process.

Kevorkian is scheduled to be released from prison on parole June 1, after serving just over eight years of his 10-25 year sentence for second-degree murder in the televised death of Thomas Youk. Turning 79 on May 26, Kevorkian’s health problems were cited by his attorney Mayer Morganroth as justification for his early release, along with good behavior.

Known as Dr. Death for his record of assisting at least 130 known individuals with suicide--many of them with no diagnosed physical illness--Kevorkian is set to become something of a media celebrity upon his release. He has already received several offers for speaking engagements at between $50,000 and $100,000 each, according to his lawyer Morganroth in a report carried by The Detroit News.

Among the celebrity journalists vying for Kevorkian interviews are Larry King and Barbara Walters, Morganroth said. CBS News will air an exclusive interview with Kevorkian by Mike Wallace on June 3, two days after Kevorkian’s release.

Portrayed by the media as an advocate for assisted suicide for the terminally ill, Kevorkian’s writings reveal his interest in legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia available upon request, for people with such varying problems as “intense anxiety or psychic torture” and those who want suicide for “religious or philosophical tenets or inflexible personal convictions.”

Attorney and bioethics critic Wesley J. Smith, writing for the Daily Standard in December 2006, pointed out that Kevorkian exhibited an avid interest in death and dying and had long pursued the goal of performing experiments on living people he was euthanizing.

“Toward this end, he had spent years attempting to convince condemned prisoners and the authorities to permit him to cut open those being executed,” Smith wrote. “Only after that effort failed did he turn his focus to the sick, disabled, and depressed--in the hope that through assisting their deaths he would eventually be permitted to conduct this macabre and useless research.”

Kevorkian’s two year parole includes a provision banning him from attending any assisted suicides. He is also restricted from acting as a caregiver for seniors or the disabled, although his parole conditions would not prevent him from having contact with seniors, “but he will have to run employment matters by his parole officer to ensure he is not doing anything inappropriate or that might be viewed as inappropriate,” said Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan.

Following his release Kevorkian will live with friends at an undisclosed Detroit address, his lawyer Morganroth said.

See Wesley J. Smith’s article on Kevorkian:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/074fsfuq.asp?p...

See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:

KEVORKIAN SENTENCED TO 10-25 YEARS
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/1999/apr/99041301.html

Kevorkian Unrepentant, Says He Won't Kill Again, But Would have Killed Terri Schiavo
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/oct/05100303.html

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