Disability Activists, Advocates and Others Pile on Time Magazine’s Error-Filled Kevorkian Tribute

My thanks to readers of this blog.  Several entered into the surprisingly short comment thread in Time Magazine‘s “Fond Farewell” to Jack Kevorkian, which I wrote about last week.  (Among other issues, the obituary referred to the people Kevorkian “helped” as ‘dying.)

Surprisingly, aside from one person who made the tired old “we’re kinder to our pets than to humans” argument – an argument that relies on mythology more than cold, hard reality, there was only one real representative from the ranks of the pro-euthanasia fanatics.  Carol Loving, whose son Nicholas was an early addition to Kevorkian’s body count, makes it a practice to jump in any blog or online story where assisted suicide is being discussed.  She doesn’t have much to add – her main purpose is to promote the book she wrote about her son’s death in a futile attempt to further cash in his suicide and her part in it.  More about her later – from some other voices.

Diane Coleman (President and founder of NDY) jumped in with this comment:

Slightly more than half of Kevorkian’s reported assisted suicides were women with non-terminal disabilities.  Many of these women had multiple sclerosis.  One of his earliest was Sherry Miller.  In The Suicide Machine, the Detroit Free Press described her as a woman who had been abandoned by her husband, who also took her children.  Having known women with MS who raised children, I see Sherry Miller’s despair as having been caused, not by MS, but by her husband.  As a disabled woman, I see Kevorkian as a serial killer who exploited women like Sherry Miller, who didn’t get the same suicide prevention a non-disabled woman would have a right to expect.  The press who helped Kevorkian get away with it, by combining anti-disability bias with laziness in reporting about his “crusade”, should be ashamed.

Kendall Corbett, a disability advocate from Wyoming.  Kendall is a disability advocate and a fellow “first generation” shunt recipient for childhood hydrocephalus.  We met each other on a hydrocephalus email list sometime over 15 years ago.  Here’s his comment, which really resonates with me on a personal level:

I find it disquieting that anyone convicted of murder would be givven a “fond farewell”  by a national magazine, since his “claim to fame” was the very thing that led to his conviction. 

I was born in 1960 with a condition (hydrocephalus) that very few survived and a much smaller percentage were perceived to have any “quality of life.”  My parents were presented with the option of not treating the condition and letting “nature take its course.”  They chose to treat it, and since then I’ve led a productive life, even though I have at least two secondary disabilities related to the condition that Dr. Kevorkian and his supporters might consider sufficient reasons to take the “final exit.”

John Kelly, a long-time NDY activist and friend who lives in Boston, wrote this:

The “plight of the dying?” As other commenters have repeatedly noted, most of his victims were not in any way “terminally ill”. But Time never did let the facts get in the way of a good story.

John Kelly is also the Director of the newly formed Second Thoughts, an organization so new its webpage currently consists of the group’s initial press release.  The organization consists of people with disabilities opposed to legalization of assisted suicide and are mobilizing opposition to the Massachusetts Assisted Suicide Initiative.
In addition to these folks, Lake County RTL, sandee soloway and someone with the username of “lampshar” also wrote very good comments.
The real “star” of the commentary, though was Bint Alshamsa, who was one of the very earliest on the scene, the most prolific – and almost certainly the most eloquent.  In her Blogger profile (see link above), she says – in part – the following about herself:
Above all else, I am proof that having an incurable cancer doesn’t mean that your life is over. I am also the mother of a gifted child who has been an artist since she was born. We live in the southern part of the beautiful state of Louisiana. I’m a biology student on hiatus as I heal from treatment.

Her blog, My Private Casbah, covers the range of her varied interest and passions.  I spent some time last weekend reading a number of her posts and I’ll be returning to read more.  I’m someone who has to read a lot – and it’s wonderful when I find a blogger who is consistently a “good read” – a hard to define set of characteristics that means I look forward to reading the material instead of doing it mainly to see what information I can get out of it.

You can read her comments back at the Time magazine site, but you really have to go check out her entry on the obituary and her experiences in dealing with Carol Loving on the site.

Here’s the link to Jack Kevorkian and Carol Loving: Self-Promoting Partners in Crime, with an excerpt:

Stephen Drake, who maintains the Not Dead Yet commentary blog wrote about Time Magazine’s sloppy and inaccurate obituary for Dr. Jack Kevorkian (the serial killer of people with disabilities) in their “Person of the Year” issue. After reading Drake’s post, I went to post a comment on the magazine’s web edition of the obituary.

I read it and took a look at the comments that had already been left by others. One of them stood out. It was from Carol Loving (I know, the irony is just too much for me to address).

What I find bewildering about this article is the lack of factual knowledge about the doctor and his method of assisting the dying. I guess that is a sign of the times.
Dr. Kevorkian is the man of the century, the 20th century.
The most honest and dignified account of his service to mankind has been incorperated into a play, created in 2009, at Western Michigan University, in collaberation with Tectonic Theater Project.
The play is GOOD DEATH: A Community Conversation. In August of this year, the play received stellar reviews in Edinbugh, Scotland. It has the power to inspire all who see the performance.
We will see euthanasia follow the good works of Dr. Kevorkian !

Carol Loving, Author
My Son, My Sorrow: The Tragic Tale of Dr. Kevorkian’s Youngest Patient

I almost have choked upon reading this! This woman had a son, Nick Loving, who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. When her son became depressed about his limitations and became suicidal, she wrote to Jack Kevorkian asking him to help her kill her son.

 As you might imagine, she has quite a bit more to say.  So please go and check out the rest of her excellent post at this link.

My thanks to everyone who jumped in and weighed in on this piece of journalistic fiction.  –Stephen Drake

8 thoughts on “Disability Activists, Advocates and Others Pile on Time Magazine’s Error-Filled Kevorkian Tribute

  1. “Carol Loving, whose son Nicholas was an early addition to Kevorkian’s body count, makes it a practice to jump in any blog or online story where assisted suicide is being discussed. She doesn’t have much to add – her main purpose is to promote the book she wrote about her son’s death in a futile attempt to further cash in his suicide and her part in it. More about her later – from some other voices.”

    I can’t speak for her as I’ve never met the woman, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that anybody whose son died from the mental and physical bondage and torture of Lou Gehrig’s Disease would defend the right to die movement in order to promote a book that is OUT OF PRINT (I had to get my copy on eBay). Also, have you even READ the book? I have. This poor boy was tormented, and the book makes it clear that Carol Loving made a very difficult decision that was right for Nick. I can tell you right now that I wouldn’t want to be kept alive in advanced stages of Lou Gehrig’s Disease. If somebody else wants to, that’s their right. Dr. Kevorkian was about a person’s RIGHT TO CHOOSE, not about insisting that someone with a particular condition must die.

    “Slightly more than half of Kevorkian’s reported assisted suicides were women with non-terminal disabilities.”

    1. The medical community defines “terminal” as having an estimated fewer than 6 months to live. If somebody is in excruciating pain and there is no way to relieve that pain, why should it matter if that person’s projected life span is 6 months or 6 years?

    2.

    a. So WHAT? Are women incapable of making decisions for themselves? Are they always victims of men? I find that assertion on your part sexist.

    b. Slightly more than half of the population is female!

    “I was born in 1960 with a condition (hydrocephalus) that very few survived and a much smaller percentage were perceived to have any “quality of life.”

    Yes, that was 1960. Medicine has significantly advanced since then and diagnostic criteria is much more accurate.

  2. Stephen, I don’t think I have the words to explain how much it means to me that you think I added something useful to that thread. It is a thrilling thing to know that, even from home, I can join my voice with yours in the fight to show the world that we will not sit quietly as people advocate and praise the killing of our sisters and brothers.

  3. InYourFaceNewYorker,

    Maybe if you got your information from more than one highly biased source (e.g. Kevorkian and his groupies), you’d have a more complicated view of Kevorkian.

    Your counter to the criticism that Kevorkian’s body count was made of mostly people who weren’t “terminal” is either ignorant or deliberately simplistic. When reporters say that Kevorkian helped “dying” or “terminal” people they don’t inform readers they mean people who had years or decades of life left. And they would have to, since the definition of “terminal” used by the medical community is the one the public assumes is being used when they come across it. Again – unbiased looks at the people who went to Kevorkian also show that only a minority reported pain as a major complaint.

    2. The analyses I have mentioned not only note the gender bias but also note that Kevorkian’s female kills were less likely to be terminally ill than the men he “helped.” By his own suspect account, he turned most people down, so this tells us something about his own attitudes regarding what makes the lives of men and women worth living.

    How do *you* know that doctors are any better at giving advice in terms of whether a newborn should live or not than they were fifty years ago? Multiple studies reveal a consistent bias (bigotry) in the medical profession – they’re much more likely to label any given disability as “worse than death” than the families of those individuals or the individuals themselves. Often, “doo not treat” recommendations reflect that bias rather than a misdiagnosis.

  4. bint,

    I’m glad that my reaction to your writing made you feel that you can do something useful. I’m always shocked when someone as talented as you doesn’t seem to realize that her power with the written word is a rare tool.

    It’s not just with the battle against the cheerleaders for killing. When I was reading some of your more recent blog entries, I was especially struck by this entry –
    “Woman is NOT the Nigger of the World” http://bintalshamsa.blogspot.com/2011/10/woman-is-not-nigger-of-world.html

    For some reason I never saw the picture of the white woman carrying that sign on a slut walk.

    Your analysis was – to me, anyway, brilliant. About the immediate issue and about some history regarding John Lennon. I’ve never really understood the pedestal he was put on by some of my own (white) friends. He always struck me as clever and smart and as someone who thought that his ability made him wise.

    Mostly, though, it’s a great lesson about how we should all be very careful and respectful in drawing comparisons between various forms of oppression – and about appropriating language.

    I plan to read through some more of your blog over the next few weeks.

    Thank you so much for being such a powerful voice. –Stephen

  5. I’m not going to pretend to know everything about Dr. Kevorkian, and he may very well have made mistakes. Human beings are fallible, and that is why a team of doctors should have been helping him. He wanted to do that, but of course nobody would cooperate with him. So he had to do the best he could with his judgment.

    Here you talk to me about bias, and yet you are showing it. Here instead of admitting that he may very well made honest mistakes, you assume that he just wanted to kill people. This is the same tactic that people who criticize abortion use: No human being could possibly want to terminate a pregnancy unless there is something psychologically wrong with her, so she must be an inhuman monster. And the abortion doctor must enjoy “killing babies.” I’m not saying that you necessarily use this tactic against abortion (if you’re against it, obviously I don’t know), but I’m using it to illustrate the bias when protesting euthanasia. Do you think the doctors in the Netherlands who practice this enjoy killing people?

    When you trash Carol Loving’s decision to help her son die, you also write it in a biased way, as if she just didn’t want to deal with her son anymore. It seems that you cannot imagine why somebody would not want to live anymore under certain conditions and why family members would support the decision to die. Again, you conclude she must just want to promote her (out of print) book and that she didn’t care about her son. Believe it or not, moral issues (and people) are more complicated than that.

    Show me where you got your sources on Dr. Kevorkian, and also tell me this: Did you read Carol Loving’s book? Walk in the shoes of this woman by reading her book before you pass judgment.

  6. Thanks, Stephen, for another good link for me to read. Was able to do one at My Private Casbah (ME/CFS) and comment and will go back and back. I was hooked by a woman writing and that you mentioned her daughter is an artist. Happy New Year. It is a treat to be here, commenting on NDY.

    I was reading the good and not-so-good stories about the great federal judge decision requiring NYC to make taxis wheelchair accessible before I got here. Thrilling and I hope it doesn’t take too long to be able to get a cab. It is good to read you today after reading the disabilophobic comments on the NYDaily News and Wall St. Journal.
    On the former, I am blocked from commenting since I was negative about Mayor Bloomberg and the latter since I won’t “buy”. I mention that in wonder if that’s why there are often only negative comments showing disabilophobia on many websites. I had to “take someone to task” today about his comment about NDY – on one of the few sites I comment on. It was made in ignorance of NDY content.

  7. Sorry for the delays in posting. Been working on a few days off and also doing some cleaning out of old files around here.

    InYourFaceNewYork –

    You really *don’t* know Jack at all, do you? At one time, he did claim to work with a team of doctors and established guidelines – ditched them all as too much trouble.

    In fact, you’re not much on research or unbiased rational thinking yourself. If you’d bothered to research NDY at all, you’d know that as an organization we have no position at all on prebirth issues. The majority of disability activists who are allied with NDY, though, would identify as prochoice on reproductive matters.

    As for Kevorkian’s fascination/obsession with killing – I got it from Kevorkian himself. If you read his work – going back decades – his main goal in facilitating *any* death is the possibility of human experimentation on living (although terminally sedated) human beings – infants with spina bifida, adults with dementia, and people with persistent depression – all examples he used in his book “Prescription Medicide” and in earlier articles. In the book, he states that his activity in assisted suicide is only a distasteful “first step” to his goal of live human experimentation.

    I’m done with you unless you show some evidence of actually reading his material closely, done some associated research and show some evidence of something resembling critical thinking.

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