Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Dr. Kevorkian was passionate about helping the suffering

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Dr. Kevorkian was passionate about helping the suffering

    Hometownlife.com
    June 5 2011

    Dr. Kevorkian was passionate about helping the suffering


    By Geoffrey Nels Fieger
    GUEST COLUMNIST

    I first met Dr. Jack Kevorkian on a sweltering Saturday afternoon in
    August 1990. He was about to be charged with the murder of his first
    patient, Janet Adkins. There, staring at me from across my desk, was a
    frail-looking man dressed in a powder blue Cardigan sweater.

    His sister, Margo, dressed in a wig and a house coat, was with him. I
    believed at first that Margo was the more commanding of the two, and
    initially Margo carried the conversation. The only unusual
    characteristic about Jack seemed to be his intensity. It didn't take
    long to realize that this small Armenian physician was a giant man of
    courage and conviction. He was one of the most courageous men I have
    met in my lifetime. He was a rare human being - an individual who
    didn't seek history, but made history.

    Dr. Jack Kevorkian as a human being was brilliant intellectually,
    opinionated and had a boundless energy for confronting social
    hypocrisy. I liked that. He was a perfect client for me. In another
    sense he was the most difficult challenge I ever faced. No one else -
    not governors, judges, prosecutors, not the media, rabbis or cardinals
    - no one else presented a greater challenge to me than Dr. Jack
    himself.

    It was not that he was self-destructive, but he was impatient with the
    pace of social change and he was absolutely convinced of the
    correctness of his actions. In a matter of moments, he went from a
    disinterested participant in his own legal defense to a passionate
    advocate for suffering people. Before anyone even coined the phrase
    `assisted suicide,' he sat across from me and talked about what he did
    as though it was a right every patient had, and a duty every physician
    shared.

    Jack Kevorkian did what he believed to be right, and he had the moral
    conviction and the courage to stand up to constant threats of violence
    and imprisonment. That is a rare human being. Together, we planned a
    defense of human rights, and he was more than willing to sacrifice
    himself for that cause.

    I wondered if the man sitting across from me knew what he was facing.
    He didn't, but that wouldn't matter. The one thing he did know was
    that he had a responsibility to relieve the suffering of his patients,
    and that was what he was going to do. Men like that change society -
    they make history.

    As the result of this little, Armenian doctor, patients are no longer
    left to suffer until they die. As a result of what Jack did, we now
    recognize the right of every person to self-determination based on
    their own conscience and without government interference. As the
    result of that fateful meeting, my life has been changed. For a moment
    in time, I was involved in changing the course of history.

    Bloomfield Hills attorney Geoffrey Fieger represented Jack Kevorkian
    in his most celebrated trials.

    http://www.hometownlife.com/article/20110605/NEWS27/106050433/Dr-Kevorkian-passionate-about-helping-suffering?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CLivonia% 7Cs

Working...
X