Doctor Death to run for U.S. Congress

PanARMENIAN.Net - Infamous euthanasia activist Dr. Jack Kevorkian has announced that he plans to run for U.S. Congress as an independent in Michigan's 9th congressional district.



"We need some honesty and sincerity instead of corrupt government in Washington," Kevorkian told the Oakland Press, his local Michigan newspaper.



In order to be placed on the ballot, Kevorkian will need to obtain 3,000 signatures.



Nicknamed Doctor Death for his boast of helping at least 130 people - many of whom had no diagnosed physical illness, - to kill themselves, Kevorkian was released from jail last year after serving eight years of his 10-25 year sentence for the murder of 52-year-old Thomas Youk.



Kevorkian is on record as being totally unrepentant for assisting in the deaths of so many sick and disabled persons. In an interview from his prison cell in 2005 he said that although he would not commit euthanasia again, he would continue his campaign to legalize doctor assisted suicide.



"But as far as the activity goes, I have said publicly and officially that I will not perform that act again when I get out. What I'll do is what I should have done earlier, is pursue this from a legal standpoint by campaigning to get the laws changed."



When asked in the same interview about his views on the death of Terri Schiavo by starvation and dehydration, he responded by saying that he would have killed Terri had his husband asked him earlier. "After all that long period of time in a coma, I think she would qualify."



In a 2006 article in the Daily Standard newspaper, attorney and bioethics critic Wesley J. Smith pointed out that Kevorkian exhibited an avid interest in death and dying and had long pursued the goal of performing experiments on living people he was euthanizing.



"Toward this end, he had spent years attempting to convince condemned prisoners and the authorities to permit him to cut open those being executed," Smith wrote. "Only after that effort failed did he turn his focus to the sick, disabled, and depressed, in the hope that through assisting their deaths he would eventually be permitted to conduct this macabre and useless research."



Smith also mentions an earlier article in the Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, where Kevorkian proposed establishing a series of euthanasia clinics, which he called "obitoria." These clinics were to be staffed by physician-killers who would be legally permitted to terminate people who requested death. Kevorkian foresaw that the first "patients" would be the terminally and chronically ill. However, he looked forward in the article to the clinics eventually being of service to the existentially anguished, people he labeled "patients tortured by other than organic diseases."



During an interview Kevorkian invoked the Constitution's ninth amendment as justifying his actions, and denounced an unnamed tyrannical 'they,' apparently identified with "the tyrant". "My anger is aimed at my rights being blocked!" said Kevorkian.



As for Kevorkian's run for Congress, Oakland County prosecutor Dave Gorcyca, whose office prosecuted Kevorkian, had this to say: "It's probably more of a publicity stunt," Gorcyca told the Press. "To call attention to himself is standard protocol for Jack when he doesn't have the limelight focused on him," he said, LifeSiteNews.com reports.