I am getting so tired of reading about people attacking Dr. Jack Kevorkian who seemed to be one of the few people out there really willing to step up to the plate and help the dying who were left abandoned by their own physicians. Rather than accept responsibility for life and death, people from all over are coming out of the woodwork to attack Jack. Well, I for one am sick of it! Dr. Jack Kevorkian is a good man who got rail-roaded by the media. It is so sad that reporters can spin a story so corruptly that anyone can be made to seem horrible! And let’s not forget the labels we seem to apply to anyone who isn’t following the norm. As someone who has worked in the field of death and dying and has seen her share of “good” and “bad” deaths, I’m grateful that Dr. Jack Kevorkian has pushed the envelope allowing some terminally ill people in the country an opportunity to choose when and how they should die. While working as a hospice social worker, I ran into physicians who refused to give proper amounts of pain medication because of their fear that the patient would become addicted! I met physicians who didn’t want to provide proper amounts of medication because the patient was a drug addict and/or alcoholic. Sadly, people do die with pain and suffering, but with proper care, compassion and medication these people could die with peace and dignity. Now I provide education to health care and mental health care professionals. After presentations offered regarding physician-assisted suicide, physicians have approached me and shared that they have assisted with the deaths of friends and colleagues. Is there a reason for a law regarding physician-assisted suicide? You betcha! Is there a reason to persecute Dr. Jack Kevorkian? No! Instead of attacking the man, thank him and begin to discuss how you want to be cared for at the end of life. Complete your advance health care directives and speak with your physicians about your needs. America, let’s help the dying and those who are trying to bring attention to an area of life people deny.

I can't say I've spent much time thinking about Jack Kevorkian. I haven't even spent much time thinking about euthanasia. That is, until the Terri Schiavo ratings period on CNN, when I devoted quite a bit of time thinking about the horrific politicization of this young woman in a prolonged vegetative state -- a women who would probably have pulled her own cord had she been able. Not her fault that her parents and her husband disagreed. Not her fault Jeb Bush was governor of her home state. Every time CNN showed the one move she made in years, a kind of rolling motion (no proof of brain activity if you ask me, an English major -- no, actually worse, a pass/fail semiotics major) -- I cringed and got progressively angrier. She resembled David's haunting portrait, Death of Marat, or that's what I would have said in an art history paper, had I not already fortunately graduated from college with a degree in semiotics. Last week, in advance of Dr. Kevorkian's release from the slammer in Michigan, where he'd spent the previous eight years for assisting in the death of a terminally-ill man afflicted with ALS, I started to think about him. And now I'm a passionate supporter of his work. A spokesman for the Detroit archdiocese which urged his incarceration, said, "For 10 years, Jack Kevorkian's actions resembled those of a pathological serial killer. It will be truly regrettable if he's now treated as a celebrity parolee instead of the convicted murderer he is," An angel of death or an angel of compassion? I'm voting for the latter. And I wonder, is opposition to euthanasia any different from opposing a woman's right to choose? At some point, we must become the stewards of our bodies. We decide how to feed them, how to dress them, how to medicate them, and whether to take vitamins. If our government wants to get involved in our reproductive lives and our end-of-life plans, will we need to submit our blueprints for tattoos we are considering, piercings we are planning, or whether to grow beards? Will there be an office that will approve (or not) haircuts, permanent waves, and Japanese thermal straightenings? How far can this go, oh party-of-less-government? Because I will never run for office (you have my word on that) and this is just my opinion, I suppose it doesn't matter what I think. I wish I had given mercy killings more thought before Dr. Kevorkian was found guilty of his bold and compassionate acts. If an American citizen commits suicide on his own, using pills he's stockpiled himself, or ordered over the Internet, will he be posthumously arrested for taking his life? If this patient is immobilized by disease, and unable to pour the pills down his own throat, then is the agent who holds his sippee cup considered a murderer? Please give us back our bodies! If you don't tell me how to wear my hair, I won't tell you that you can't have an abortion, or a tattoo. I heard Jack Kevorkian on 60 Minutes tell Mike Wallace, resignedly, that though he still believes in his work, he is forbidden from practicing ever again. It is unlikely that another doctor will take up where Kevorkian left off, at least in the foreseeable future. Of course, that future is filled with federal officials who want you to believe that healthy babies must be killed in order to procure the stem cells needed to solve many of the knottiest medical riddles of our day. Kevorkian, now 79 years old and a Samuel Beckett look-alike, deserves our thanks for his courageous deeds. ----- You can hear Lisa on her radio show - Monday through Friday 9am to Noon EST on GreenStoneMedia.com After reading this article, I emailed Lisa and the next day was a guest on her radio show. You can listen to our discussion on my site at: www.drkrisskevorkian.com under the podcast link. ;)