M C I L Journal
				MCIL Journal 2007
				MCIL Journal 2006
				MCIL Journal Index

The Memphis Center for
Independent Living Journal

Index
of previous MCIL Journals

3/3/99, 8:49 amcst

DISABLED PEOPLE EXCLUDED FROM KEVORKIAN TRIAL!
Michigan is the South of the 90's

In Michigan, death is accessible to people with disabilities, but courtrooms are not. In the upcoming trial of Jack Kevorkian, Michigan's serial killer of disabled people, no disabled people are allowed.

In the 1950's and beyond, whites killed blacks and got away with it. African-Americans were not allowed on juries. All the lawyers and judges were white. Courtrooms were segregated - the victim's peers were relegated to the courtroom balcony. Equal protection of the law was routinely denied. Justice depends on the color of your skin.

Today, people with disabilities face the same discrimination.

In the 1990's, non-disabled people kill disabled people and get away with it. Kevorkian has been prosecuted for only a handful of the 130 deaths he has caused, mostly people with non-terminal disabilities. Disabled people were not on the juries. All the lawyers and judges were non-disabled. And his victims' peers are not just segregated to the balcony - we cannot even get into the courtroom!

Equal protection of the law - Michigan never heard of it. It's the South in the 50's all over again.

Kevorkian's Motive:
It's Not Compassion, It's Contempt

Jack Kevorkian claims that his motive is compassion. But Kevorkian himself has provided ample evidence of his actual motives.

First, Kevorkian admits that his motive in the current trial is to overturn Michigan's assisted suicide ban, or at least to preclude further prosecutions of himself when he violates that law. He deliberately selected Mr. Youk as his "test case" because ALS is widely regarded as exceptionally tragic. If near death, Mr. Youk was relatively rare among Kevorkian's victims.

During the 60 Minutes broadcast, Kevorkian also admitted that he wanted to move the public discussion from assisted suicide to active euthanasia, an even greater threat to people with disabilities. While family and societal support for assisted suicide increase the chance that a disabled or ill person will find what Mike Wallace recently called "the guts to do it," euthanasia virtually guarantees a completed death.

Kevorkian has also neglected to mention certain more grizzly motives, and the press have evidently not looked up his writings:

1. In Prescription: Medicide, Kevorkian explains that public acceptance of assisted suicide and euthanasia is an essential step to advancing his goals involving live human experimentation and organ harvesting.

2. In a medical journal article entitled "The Last Fearsome Taboo: Medical Aspects of Planned Death," Kevorkian discusses his goals of live human experimentation and organ harvesting in connection with death row prisoners, as well as adults with Alzheimer's and babies with spina bifida.

3. Kevorkian's written testimony from his first prosecution mentions his motive to "enhance public welfare" through the "voluntary self-elimination of individual and mortally diseased or crippled lives taken collectively."

In short, disabled people are expendable for "the greater good." That's not compassion, it's contempt.

Not Dead Yet!
7521 Madison Street
Forest Park, IL 60130

Contacts:
Diane Coleman (800) 759-8352 Pager Code 1412017 (708) 209-1500
Dusty Hogue (810) 287-5040

The Memphis Center for Independent Living
1633 Madison Avenue, Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 726-6404 v/tty (901) 726-6521 fax
mcil@mcil.org 

MCIL is a United Way of the Mid-South member Agency

Return to the top of this page

MCIL would like feedback on the accessibility of this website.  Please send your comments and concerns to webmaster@mcil.org

© 2006 Tim Wheat