‘DR. DEATH’ AT U.F.
By James A. Smith Sr., executive Editor
Florida Baptist Witness, FL
Aug 1 2007
The "Rosa Parks" of euthanasia is coming to Gainesville in October to
proselytize for his cause at the invitation of a University of Florida
student organization. But Jack Kevorkian is not coming just to spread
his morally repugnant message of physician-assisted suicide. He’ll
be paid $50,000 for his trouble.
Only days after being released from a Michigan prison on parole for
his second-degree murder conviction of a man suffering from Lou
Gehrig’s disease, Accent, UF’s student speaker’s bureau, was the
first to invite Kevorkian to speak about his immoral mission.
According to Kevorkian’s attorney, the former pathologist has accepted
the invitation and will earn the big payday-and it’s likely Kevorkian’s
speech at UF will be his first, although other speaking requests are
coming in.
Kevorkian is responsible for the deaths of at least 130 persons in his
campaign to normalize physician-assisted suicide-a significant number
of whom were not actually terminally ill, according to autopsies
performed by the State of Michigan. As a condition of his parole,
Kevorkian agreed to not "assist" any others, although he is permitted
to advocate his cause. And, it’s young people whom Kevorkian wishes
to reach.
"I want to talk to young people, high school and college, because I
think the old ones have petrified minds," Kevorkian told CNN’s Larry
King three days after his release from prison.
Admitting that he knew physician-assisted suicide was illegal,
Kevorkian told King he did it anyway for "the same reason Rosa Parks
did it. She knew that was a right of hers. And, sir, I knew that this
was a right of mine. These are natural rights."
It demonstrates just how distorted this man’s mind is that he would
compare his morbid example of civil disobedience to that of Rosa
Parks, whose elegant and dignified resistance to an order to sit in
the back of a Montgomery, Ala., bus in 1955 marked the beginning of
the morally righteous effort to end racial segregation in America.
Kevorkian corrected King when he asked about his "killings," preferring
instead the term "medical procedures," even though the American
Medical Association officially opposes physician-assisted suicide.
Although he told King that his financial status was "comfortable"
in spite of a 1999 settlement that awarded Michigan 90 percent of his
wealth, Kevorkian’s attorney, Mayer Morganroth, defended the $50,000
speaking fee at UF and the other big paydays to come-for some as
much as $100,000 per appearance, telling the Gainesville Sun the
79-year-old man has "got to somehow support himself."
Kevorkian’s Oct. 11 speech is drawing criticism from Bobby Schindler,
brother of Terri Schindler Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman
who died in 2005 after her feeding tube was removed by court order.
As head of the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, Schindler has
begun a petition drive to UF president and the Student Government
Association (of which Accent is a part) asking that the invitation
to Kevorkian be rescinded.
"It is unacceptable for the University of Florida to give a platform to
Jack Kevorkian, a man who willfully helped take people’s lives, some of
whose only ailment was depression, and pay him $50,000 to spread his
violent message of ‘mercy killing’ to the students of the University
of Florida," the petition asserts. The petition can be accessed online
at http://tool.donation-net./TSSF/DrDeath.cfm?dn=1068 &refer=2000.
Steve Blank, chairman of Accent, told the Sun the opposition of
Schindler and others would "not at all" cause the Kevorkian invitation
to be rescinded.
Accent, funded by student fees with an annual budget of $350,000,
according to the Sun, claims to be the "largest, student-run,
speaker’s bureau in the nation" and prides itself on bringing
"controversial and influential speakers to the university, with the
intent of further educating the student body, outside of the classroom,
on current hot topics and controversies," according to its Web site
().
Some of Accent’s controversial speakers have included liberal
documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, pornography star Ron Jeremy and
conservative columnist Ann Coulter, the Sun reported.
Beth Waltrip, director of student activities at UF, told the Sun
that the university wants to encourage "dialogue and exchange of
information. … As a general philosophy from the university, we
may or may not agree with the position (taken by the speaker) but we
don’t want to suppress the conversation about it. We’re not going to
suppress it because it may be a thorny position."
In several media appearances Kevorkian has complained that nothing
has changed on the physician-assisted suicide front during his eight
years in prison, telling Larry King that Oregon’s law allowing "mercy
killings" is not done "completely and right" because "a person who
can’t swallow can’t get the service. Also, he has to be able to move
his hand and arm to get the pill up to his mouth. Some can’t do that.
Some can’t swallow. … Now, that’s not a medical service."
The tragic reality is that things have indeed changed a great
deal-and every step is closer to Dr. Death’s prescription of
normalized physician-assisted suicide in America. There’s no doubt
that Kevorkian’s radical campaign of death has played its part in
slowly numbing Americans’ opposition to "mercy killings," like that
of Terri Schiavo.
According to his attorney, Kevorkian is the subject of adulation
at his local grocery store. "They came over and some would say ‘our
hero.’ … He is received unbelievably like an icon or statesman,"
Morganroth told the Sun.
And now, the "hero," the "Rosa Parks" of physician-assisted suicide,
is coming to Florida, courtesy of the University of Florida.