Word: kevorkian
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Then there is the discomfiting pattern that, though men are three times as likely as women to commit suicide, so far all of Dr. Kevorkian's suicide patients have been female. It's not that he has any special fondness for watching women die, but rather, he has explained, because "women are just far more realistic about facing death and have got the guts to do it." Kevorkian considers his treatment a form of toughlove. He recalls his first client, ^ Janet Adkins, a vibrant 54-year-old just diagnosed with Alzheimer's who sought out Kevorkian because she was terrified...
That doesn't satisfy his critics particularly. "He's more like a serial killer than a physician," says Professor George Annas of Boston University's school of medicine. There is already some evidence that Kevorkian's relentless grandstanding is raising alarms among euthanasia supporters. Last year the State of Washington debated Initiative 119, which would have allowed physician-assisted suicide. In early October the measure was heavily favored. Two weeks later, Kevorkian helped his second and third clients, both chronically but not terminally ill, to kill themselves. The ammunition he provided euthanasia opponents may well have helped defeat the measure...
...unlikely that lawmakers in Michigan would have acted had Kevorkian not forced their hand. When his sixth client, a 45-year-old cancer patient, came to Michigan to consult with him and killed herself on Nov. 23, the bill that had stalled swiftly sailed through the legislature in less than 10 days, on overwhelming votes in both the upper and lower chambers. "It's just the outright assisting in a killing that this bill will prohibit," says representative Joseph Palamara, a Democratic state legislator from Wyandotte. "It doesn't affect whatsoever doctors who withhold or withdraw food...
...fact the law will indeed affect other doctors, because Kevorkian's crusade has in some way touched them all. In recent years the leaders of the hospice movement, specialists in pain management and depression, have been transforming the dying process, much as the natural-childbirth movement did to childbearing over the past generation. In a sense they are racing against the radicals. Once they can offer a more gentle and dignified alternative to either a life ground down by pain or a death in a high-tech hell, the demand for Dr. Kevorkian's service will disappear...
Ignoring the law, Kevorkian gathers his next candidates...