Another university is paying Jack Kevorkian to speak, and once again the media—in this case the Miami Herald—can’t even report the basic facts about him correctly. From the story, byline Julie Levin:
Dr. Jack Kevorkian will speak from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at Nova Southeastern University in Davie. Organizers expect a large crowd to hear the longtime advocate for a terminally ill patient’s right to die. “He represents a very important perspective on the issue of life and death through assisted suicide,” said Don Rosenblum, dean of NSU’s Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences. The school is hosting Kevorkian as part of its Distinguished Speakers Series that corresponds with its theme of “Life and Death.”…
He eventually served eight years in prison in Michigan on a second-degree murder conviction for an assisted suicide in which he, not the patient, turned the device on. Released in 2007, he continues to advocate for a terminally ill person’s right to choose suicide.
Such a short story and the only thing the Herald reported accurately—we assume—was the time and place of the speech! First, the issue isn’t “suicide” but assisted suicide. Second, he didn’t “turn a device on” in the murder of Thomas Youk: He lethally injected him—and then took the video of the killing to Mike Wallace for airing on 60 Minutes. Finally, he has never advocated limiting assisted suicide to the terminally ill. Indeed, most of Kevorkian’s clients were not dying, but were disabled. Five weren’t even sick upon their autopsy. In fact, in his 1991 book Prescription Medicide, he looked forward to eventually establishing euthanasia clinics that would even be open to people who felt morally duty-bound to end their own lives.
And let us not forget that Kevorkian’s ultimate goal was a license to practice “obitiatry,” that is human experimentation on living people he was euthanizing.
Is it really that hard to report accurately, Miami Herald?
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