Amazon.com Review
Some of Dr. Jack Kevorkian's "patients" traversed the continent seeking relief. Local prosecutors charged that Kevorkian was committing murder, not "medicide." When a court disagreed, the Michigan legislature passed a flawed law to thwart the retired pathologist. Suddenly, medically assisted suicide was out of the closet and onto every newscast. Written by a seasoned journalist who covered Kevorkian for the Detroit Free Press, this book exposes both the macabre and the merciful. Standing on either side are grandstanding attorneys, sanctimonious critics, devoted supporters and, keeping score, an often callous media horde. The patients/victims and their survivors, meanwhile, struggle to deal with untenable lives. Among those who kept appointments with Dr. Death is a young cancer victim who came to Detroit and died just as Michael Betzold sat down to write this book. Incredibly--without her knowledge that Betzold was covering the story, and without his knowledge of her impending death--medicide patient #15 was Betzold's first cousin and childhood friend.
From Publishers Weekly
Kevorkian, the retired pathologist who has helped 18 patients with terminal illnesses or chronic extreme pain to die since 1990, is now facing trial under Michigan's new law banning assisted suicide. In interviews with Detroit Free Press reporter Betzold ( End of the Line ), the doctor, son of immigrant Armenian parents who witnessed his own mother's agonizing death from cancer, states his case. Kevorkian denies belief in an afterlife, and considers his cause an ethical one. The author recounts the actual last moments of the dying patients who have turned to Kevorkian. His critics are vividly sketched: the medical establishment, anti-abortion activists and what Kevorkian calls a "barbaric religious clique." And we also hear from his staunch defenders, notably his attorney Geoffrey Fieger, the ACLU and the Hemlock Society. "It's unstoppable," says Kevorkian, "It may not happen in my lifetime, but my opponents are going to lose." The book may be intended as a pre-trial defense brief, but readers who are willing to hear Kevorkian out are given much to ponder.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
