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NEWS RELEASE

November 21, 2001

CONTACT:

• Diane Coleman, J.D., Executive Director, Stephen Drake or Carol Cleigh   (708) 209-1500

Disability activists across the country have something new to celebrate this Thanksgiving. In a unanimous decision, the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the 2nd degree murder conviction of Jack Kevorkian.

Kevorkian argued that his conviction should be overturned on several grounds. One claim was that he received inadequate legal advice. Kevorkian, contrary to multiple warnings from the trial judge, represented himself in the case that resulted in his incarceration. Disability activists, who were present every day of Kevorkian's trial for the execution of Thomas Youk, are relieved to see the conviction stand.

"Kevorkian is a serial killer of disabled people and should stay in prison for the full term of his sentence. Allowing him freedom would be an insult to disabled people everywhere," says disability activist and author Carol Cleigh. "Kevorkian made a career out of exploiting the despair of oppressed disabled women and being called a hero for it. He reacted to the suicidal despair of men and women by affirming their feelings of having lives not worth living. This is ableist bigotry at its worst and most deadly."

A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine documented that most of the people who died at Kevorkian's hands were women with disabilities, and not terminally ill, contrary to popular misconceptions created by Kevorkian and his allies. Instead, people who went to Kevorkian were disabled people in social and emotional crisis.

"We are relieved that Kevorkian will serve out his sentence," says Diane Coleman, founder and president of Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group that leads the disability community's opposition to legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia. "He has repeatedly made it clear that he has no respect for the law, and even less respect for people with disabilities. In fact, he holds both the law and disabled people in contempt."

Stephen Drake, research analyst for Not Dead Yet, is pleased to know Kevorkian stay in jail for the foreseeable future. "Whether Kevorkian resumed killing our people or not, the very fact that he 'got off' with just two years in prison would mean that the court felt that killing a disabled person is not a serious crime. Besides, even if he refrained from new killings, he would have set out on the media and lecture circuit recruiting other killer docs."

Local, Memphis:

Tim Wheat
(901) 726-6404 * (901) 726-6521 fax
1633 Madison Avenue  - Memphis TN 38104

National:

Steve Drake

Diane Coleman
(708) 209-1500 ext. 11
7521 Madison St.
Forest Park, IL 60130

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

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