Prescription Medicide: The Goodness of Planned Death [Hardcover]

Jack Kevorkian (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1991

The inventor of the controversial "suicide machine" outlines his startling views on planned death and its potential impact on organ harvesting and medical experimentation in this graphic and well-argued commentary. Photographs.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kevorkian gained notoriety last year when he performed the first publicly acknowledged "physician-assisted suicide" by helping Janet Adkins, a victim of Alzheimer's disease, take her own life. The method of death was the Mercitron, the "suicide machine" Kevorkian invented, which enables a person to self-administer a lethal injection. In this self-dramatizing, often strident manifesto he argues that "medicide," his term for doctor-assisted suicide, is an ethical option that should be extended not only to the infirm or terminally ill, but also to inmates on death row. Condemned prisoners, he maintains, should, if they choose, be executed via general anesthesia, with the option of donating organs or having their intact bodies used for medical experimentation. Kevorkian's contention that the existence of his machine renders moral questions about euthanasia obsolete is simplistic. His book is likely to stir a hornet's nest of controversy. Photos. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-- A thought-provoking book about the years Kevorkian spent campaigning for the use of organ donations from condemned prisoners and about the modes of capital punishment throughout history. Verbose in style, the book is not written as leisure reading for YAs, but it is valuable for students researching capital punishment.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 268 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books; 1St Edition edition (September 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879756772
• ISBN-13: 978-0879756772
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,215,598 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #27 in Books > Medical Books > Medicine > Euthanasia

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a commonsensical discussion of important issues, November 30, 1999

By 

Al Kihano (Iskandria) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prescription Medicide: The Goodness of Planned Death (Paperback)

``Dr. Death'' got his start with campaigns to allow death row inmates to donate their organs (currently organ donation is impossible). If you take a heart, a liver, two kidneys, two corneas, and bone marrow from a willing donor with a known execution date, and you can save quite a few lives with his death.

It's common-sense arguments like these, not grisly death-obsession, that makes this book worth reading. I expect that some readers will find the sections on euthanasia distasteful, but the subject is handled carefully and smartly.

For all his faults, Kevorkian is a strong and articulate voice who is too often written off automatically as a crank and a murderer. Read this book in order to balance your perspective, then judge him if you wish.

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dr. Jack autographed it for me!, November 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Prescription Medicide: The Goodness of Planned Death (Hardcover)

I purchased this book here from Amazon and after reading it I sent it, along with a nice letter in support of Kevorkian to him. Within 2 weeks he personally signed and returned my book to me.

I enjoyed this book. It explains how and why he got into assisted suicide.

If you are against what Dr. Jack does, be open minded and read this book. He is not a weird old man, he is a humanitarian. He makes no salary, and does this because he doesn't want people to suffer.

You will enjoy this book... I couldn't put it down.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye Opener, June 9, 2001

By 

"bacteriaphage" (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prescription Medicide: The Goodness of Planned Death (Paperback)

This book is not only an eye opener but it also expresses Kevorkian frustration with the governments control over medicine. It's kind of nice to see that old people have issues they like to fight for as well. At one point talks of his quest to encourage the government to allow peoplle on death row to donate their bodies to science but the government. Kevorkian is a good man and it saddens me to think what the media has done to him.