Medicine at Michigan Shamefully Honors Jack Kevorkian

This article was published by National Review online on December 5, 2025.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

Medicine at Michigan is a medical news magazine that reports on activities of the University of Michigan Medical School. The magazine recently published a list of 175 “stories” of its “leaders and best” doctors that were affiliated with or graduated from the medical school.

The doctors so honored offered tremendous service to the profession, such as the great pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr. Ben Carson, and the developer of the first polio vaccine, Dr. Jonas Salk. But one of the listees — the late Jack Kevorkian — was a true villain and has no place being honored in any regard.

Jack Kevorkian

Kevorkian is listed under the section labeled, “Making a difference internationally” and “helping to serve the world.” This is how it begins:

“Dear Dr. Kevorkian, HELP! I am a 41-year-old victim of MS. I can no longer take care of myself. Being of sound mind, I wish to end my life peacefully . . .”

This letter from 1990 is typical of the correspondence received by Jack Kevorkian, who was the best-known advocate for physician-assisted suicide in the United States.

Yes he was. But let’s get real. Kevorkian had an unremarkable medical career as a pathologist. He wouldn’t be remembered at all but for killing or assisting the suicides (mostly, with carbon monoxide) of some 130 people during the 1990s

Right-to-die legislation must consider concerns of African Americans

This article was published by Bridge Michigan on September 25, 2024.

Terri Laws

By Terri Laws, associate professor of African and African American studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

In the 1990s, Royal Oak’s Dr. Jack Kevorkian put a national spotlight on the debate over the right of terminally ill patients to die with the aid of a physician. As Democrats reclaim their majority in the state Legislature, Michigan may be at the epicenter of this conversation again.

Last fall, a group of Democrats introduced the Michigan Death With Dignity Act, which would legalize physician-assisted dying, also known as medical aid in dying. Patients with a terminal condition, expected to die within six months, would be able to request that a participating doctor write them a prescription for drugs that, when self-administered and ingested, would allow the patient to die on the date of their choosing.

Many Michiganders will see this legislation as reasonable and compassionate. To others, however, often people of color, this legislation is more complicated. Some fear doctors and insurance companies may deny them lifesaving treatments and steer them toward assisted suicide instead. Others are concerned that legalization will normalize this type of death as the “correct” way to approach the end of life, when their cultural beliefs and practices tell them otherwise. Central to these views are issues around equitable access to care — and of trust.

According to a 2022 Pew Research report, nearly a quarter of the US population say they have “not too much or no confidence in medical scientists to act in the best interests of the public.” For African Americans, this mistrust has deep origins in exploitative experimental medicine and undertreatment. The best-known example — of far too many — is the 40-year long Tuskegee Syphilis Study authorized and conducted by the United States Public Health Service. Black men in rural Alabama, diagnosed with syphilis, were recruited into the study and were left untreated so physicians could follow the progression of the disease and conduct an autopsy once they died. The “study” continued even after penicillin became standard treatment in the 1950s and through 15 articles published in medical journals. In light of these horrifying details, it should be easy to see how rational many African Americans’ distrust of the traditional health care system is.

The effort to pass MAiD in Michigan is part of a larger, well-organized right-to-die movement. Legalization advocates move from state to state lobbying elected officials with template bills, which include the promise of legislative safeguards. They also point to public polls that measure the popularity of attitudes that support the legislation. But attitudes are not practice. Safeguards only put people at ease when they trust the entity creating them and that the people within those entities will enforce them. Data from states that have adopted right-to-die legislation shows that people of color are largely steering clear of pursuing a deliberate death. For example, in racially and ethnically diverse California, the Bureau of the Census reports that 35% of persons in the state selected their racial identity as white alone, yet public health reporting shows 88% of MAiD requests come from whites. A similar pattern of use has emerged across the country where the practice is legal.

A lesser-known outcome of Tuskegee is that it ultimately became one of several research studies later recognized as so egregious that it contributed to Congressional hearings and legislation that, ultimately, led to the national commission that approved the research standards and ethical framework that the US, and much of the world, lives with today. Passage of the Medical Aid in Dying Act in Michigan must include trustworthy safeguards, including genuine opportunities for community conversations and input — both before and after enactment — and funding for public education.

It is worth noting that people of color are not the only ones with reservations about MAiD. Those with less education and the un- or under-insured, not to mention persons who have disabilities, have expressed concerns as well.

For advocates of MAiD, the right to ingest medication that may bring about a “good death” seems morally right, compassionate, just and a matter of autonomy. But if we are to legalize the right to die in Michigan in a way that does not exacerbate distrust and inequity, we need to acknowledge and address Michiganders’ differing historical attitudes, cultural perspectives and lived experiences around end of life care.

Michigan debates deceptive assisted suicide Senate Bill 0681

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Michigan assisted suicide Senate Bill 0681 is similar to previous versions of the Oregon assisted suicide law. Senate Bill 0681 is a tighter assisted suicide bill which tells me that the assisted suicide lobby doesn't have the votes in Michigan.

Senate Bill 0681 is a "trojan horse" as it is designed to sell assisted suicide and if passed  the assisted suicide lobby will soon expand the law.

The Oregon assisted suicide law is promoted as having safeguards, in fact the law lacks any effective oversight.

What you need to know about the Oregon assisted suicide law

The 2022 Oregon assisted suicide report indicated that there were 278 reported assisted suicide deaths up from 255 in 2021. There were 431 lethal death prescriptions up from 383 in 2021.

The 2022 report indicates that even though there were 278 reported assisted suicide deaths, there were an additional 101 deaths where ingestion status was unknown. When the ingestion status is unknown, the person received the lethal drugs and died but there is no information as to whether the person died by assisted suicide or by a natural death.

As with previous years, the report implies that the deaths were voluntary (self-administered), but the information in the report does not address that subject.

The assisted suicide lobby, for political reasons, has decided to introduce an older style Oregon assisted suicide bill in Michigan, but once legal they will move to expand the law.

Expansion of assisted suicide

Oregon Governor Kate Brown, in July 2019, signed Bill SB 0579 into law which essentially eliminated the 15 day assisted suicide waiting period by allowing the physician to waive the waiting period. If the patient is depressed, the patient loses the opportunity to change their mind.

The physician waived the 15 day waiting period in 109 assisted suicide deaths in 2022. In some cases the lethal drug cocktail was ingested the day after the first request.

Oregon has removed the assisted suicide residency requirement

A story published in the Daily Mail stated that an assisted suicide clinic in Oregon has started doing assisted suicide for out-of-state residents (suicide tourism). The Daily Mail reports:

Oregon has become America’s first ‘death tourism’ destination, where terminally ill people from Texas and other states that have outlawed assisted suicide have started travelling to get their hands on a deadly cocktail of drugs to end their lives, DailyMail.com can reveal.

In the liberal bastion Portland, at least one clinic has started receiving out-of-staters who have less than six months to live and meet the other strict requirements of the state’s Death with Dignity (DWD) law.

Dr. Nicholas Gideonse, the director of End of Life Choices Oregon, recently told a panel that he was advising terminally ill non-residents on travelling to Oregon to end their lives, despite a legal gray area.

The assisted suicide lobby, over the past few years, has expanded existing assisted suicide laws. Oregon has eliminated their reflection period and their residency requirement. Vermont is permitting assisted suicide by telehealth and have eliminated their residency requirement, Washington state, California and Hawaii also expanded their assisted suicide laws. New Mexico has the most extreme assisted suicide law in America.

Assisted suicide drug experimentation

Assisted suicide activists have been experimenting with lethal drug cocktails on people approved for assisted suicide. An article by Lisa Krieger published by the Medical Xpress on September 8, 2020 uncovers information about the lethal drug experiments:

A little-known secret, not publicized by advocates of aid-in-dying, was that while most deaths were speedy, others were very slow. Some patients lingered for six or nine hours; a few, more than three days. No one knew why, or what needed to change.

"The public thinks that you take a pill and you're done," said Dr. Gary Pasternak, chief medical officer of Mission Hospice in San Mateo. "But it's more complicated than that."

Assisted suicide is sold to the public as offering a peaceful death. Assisted suicide is far more complicated than that.

The 2021 Oregon report emphasizes that the use of the fourth generation of lethal drug cocktails show that the length of time to die has reduced but the problems with the lethal drug cocktail experiments continue.

The yearly Oregon DWD reports are based on data from the physicians who prescribe and carry-out the assisted suicide deaths. The data is not independently verified. 

 

Data concerning complications and length of time for death, etc., can only be reported when a healthcare provider is present at the death. Information from Oregon concerning complications is only available for 150 of the 278 reported assisted suicide deaths in 2022. For the other 128 assisted suicide deaths, no information is known about the death.

The assisted suicide lobby claims that Oregon has a "safe" assisted suicide regime but in fact the Oregon law lacks effective oversight. 

A recent report published in the British Medical Journal Supportive and Palliative Care examines the data from the Oregon Death with Dignity reports (1998 to 2022) and uncovers significant problems with the Oregon assisted suicide data.

Don't let the trojan horse of assisted suicide Senate Bill 0681 into Michigan.

Once assisted suicide is legal, the assisted suicide lobby will lobby or launch court cases to expand the law. The original assisted suicide bill is designed to pass in the legislature, once passed incremental extensions will follow.