Jack_Kevorkian is an American pathologist, right-to-die activist, painter, composer, and instrumentalist. He is most noted for publicly championing a terminal patient's right to die via physician-assisted suicide; he claims to have assisted at least 130 patients to that end. He famously said that "dying is not a crime." 

I've Waiting Years 20 Years For This Film

And I am overjoyed that a director as gifted as Barry Levinson Levinson has done it. It's just one more depressing reminder of the social regression that has hit America's shores in the 15 years since Fox News joined the Culture War. Kevorkian did eight long years in prison, all throughout the pathetic Terri Schiavo  case, and we STILL don't really discuss Right to Die issues in any way that would ever bring forth legislation. We're too busy discussing Sarah Palin's palm notes, how Sue Lowden's family once paid doctors with chickens, or whether Glenn back is a character or psycho neurotic. Conservatives found out how to rule our body politik and America lost her soul.

Mazer's script follows the doctor from his earliest, quietest cases in Michigan through his first blushes of local and then national publicity, including his portrait on the cover of Time. Kevorkian must do battle not only with overzealous politicians but also with fellow doctors who denounce him as a killer quack; with his own lawyer, who eventually decides to run for political office; and with America's ever-ready nut fringe, members of which show up at his home in states of pietistic imbecility. 

Read: "You Don't Know Jack" (Review by Tom Shales, Washington Post)

 

My father wasted away in a slow, wretched death spiral

Since then, I have always been sensitive to the misery that our archaic attitudes are toward life, and what should be our right to leave it when we're good and ready.  It should not be up to anyone else to tell us when that is. I think conservatives who rile against this basic right are simply addicted to controlling other people's lives as compensation for no real control over their own.

Here are some basics on this basic human right:

Background

  About "You Don't Know Jack"

  Jack Kevorkian

  Al Pacino

    Right To Die Issues

  Experts & Organizations

  Tutorials & Guides

  • The Suicide_bag — Make no mistake. Taking one's life is harder than it sounds, if one wants to minimize pain, risk of failure, and a myriad of other common consequences of suicide.  This article concerns the so called Exit bag method of personal self-determination. It is considered the only fast, painless and untraceable way that a family can help you, a friend, or a family member to end their life with dignity, and without the risks or legal implications of other methods.