On June 7, 1998, 45-year-old Joseph Tushkowski became Jack Kevorkian’s 109th known victim and the first known to have had his organs removed. According to the medical examiner, Tushkowski’s sweater was pulled up, his belly opened and his kidneys pulled out. Kevorkian has other plans for human experimentation.
Under oath, during cross examination in his l996 trial, Jack Kevorkian admitted that he favors doing medical experiments on those who are candidates for assisted suicide. (1)
According to Kevorkian, the practice of planned death would be carried out in special death clinics where human experimentation could take place prior to the person’s death. (2)
He has described a process by which “subjects,” including infants, children and mentally incompetent people would be used for experiments “of any kind or complexity.” (3) Then, “if the subject’s body is alive” after experimentation, “death may be induced” by such means as “removal of organs for transplantation” or “a lethal dose of a new or untested drug to be administered by an official lay executioner.” (4)
Kevorkian has also described the types of “case experiments” that could be done using his method of planned death:
· Man with cerebral palsy: “A mentally competent 30-year-old man, deformed, in great pain, and essentially helpless due to worsening cerebral palsy, is granted his wish to die in an obitorium (in the presence of the usual witnesses) so that his organs may be taken for transplantation.” (5)
· Suicidal 22-year-old in robust physical condition: “After two years of intensive professional and lay counseling and one abortive attempt at suicide by hanging, a 22-year-old man in robust physical condition certifies in writing and beyond doubt his irrevocable intention of dying. He consents to enter an obitorium, when an academic transplant team has its first opportunity of trying on a human being a new technique perfected in rats….” (6)
· Incompetent 65-year-old woman: “With proper consent and endorsement from all family members and from designated authorities a hopelessly incompetent 65-year-old woman crippled by Alzheimer’s disease enters an obitorium” where a “daring experiment on the brain hitherto limited to animals” is carried out. After experimenting on the woman, “a lay technician finally injects a lethal overdose of thiopental on the fourth day.” (7)
· Handicapped newborn infant: “A full-term infant born with severe spina bifida, paraplegia, and hydrocephalus is transferred, once proper consent and authorization have been obtained, to an obitorium for research hitherto conducted in rats….” Two hours after putting “test material” into the infant’s stomach by tube, “the abdominal cavity is opened, and the intact stomach, small intestine, and liver are removed separately for preservation and subsequent processing for chemical analysis. Meanwhile the infant’s heart and lungs are removed for transplantation elsewhere.” (8)
Kevorkian wrote that the above described situations are examples of the benefits of his type of his plans, including the fact that such human experimentation would “make it possible to conduct daring and highly imaginative research” and would “eliminate the need for animals now sacrificed unnecessarily” for research purposes. (9)
In 1997 Kevorkian and his team came close to carrying out a public death and organ-for-harvest event. When a Michigan teenager needed a liver transplant, Janet Good — who served as Kevorkian’s gatekeeper and major fan until she became one of his statistics — found a Chicago man with emphysema to be a donor. The Kevorkian team planned to stage a parking lot assisted suicide outside the hospital. Then, with cameras rolling, they were going to make a dramatic entrance into the hospital with a corpse and liver. The plan fell through when another liver was found for the girl before the Kevorkian team could act. (10)
It took another year for Kevorkian to stage an organ harvesting event.
Sources:
1. Jeff Martin, “‘There is no law,’ Kevorkian shouts,” Detroit Free Press, May 7, 1996, p. 1A, 3A and Jack Lessenberry, “Kevorkian’s Angry Words Repeatedly Disrupt Trial,” New York Times, May 7, 1996, p. A8.
2. Jack Kevorkian, “The Last Fearsome Taboo: Medical Aspects of Planned Death,” Medicine and Law, vol. 7 (1988), pp. 3-4, 8-9.
3. Jack Kevorkian, “A Comprehensive Bioethical Code for Medical Exploitation of Humans Facing Imminent and Unavoidable Death,”Medicine and Law, vol. 5 (1986), p. 194-195.
4. Jack Kevorkian, “A Comprehensive Bioethical Code for Medical Exploitation of Humans Facing Imminent and Unavoidable Death,”Medicine and Law, vol. 5 (1986), p. 194.
5. Jack Kevorkian, “The Last Fearsome Taboo: Medical Aspects of Planned Death,” Medicine and Law, vol. 7 (1988), p. 8. (“Obitorium” is one of the words Kevorkian uses to describe the death clinics he plans to open.)
6. Jack Kevorkian, “The Last Fearsome Taboo: Medical Aspects of Planned Death,” Medicine and Law, vol. 7 (1988), p.8.
7. Jack Kevorkian, “The Last Fearsome Taboo: Medical Aspects of Planned Death,” Medicine and Law, vol. 7 (1988), p.8.
8. Jack Kevorkian, “The Last Fearsome Taboo: Medical Aspects of Planned Death,” Medicine and Law, vol. 7 (1988), p.9.
9. Jack Kevorkian, “The Last Fearsome Taboo: Medical Aspects of Planned Death,” Medicine and Law, vol. 7 (1988), p.9.
10. Michael Betzold, “The Selling of Doctor Death, New Republic, May 28, 1997, p. 22.
