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Paging Dr. Death: The Political Theater of Assisted Suicide in Michigan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Susan P. Fino ,
John M. Strate  and
Marvin Zalman
Susan P. Fino
Affiliation:
Wayne State University, USA
John M. Strate
Affiliation:
Wayne State University, USA
Marvin Zalman
Affiliation:
Wayne State University, USA
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Abstract

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a retired pathologist from Royal Oak, Michigan, created an instant sensation on June 4, 1990, when he assisted Janet Adkins in committing suicide by lethal injection. Kevorkian's activities, and the ineffectual efforts of public officials to stop him, generated social conflict, issue expansion, and political theater. In this case, political theater involved acts of civil disobedience that resulted in arrests, three high-profile criminal trials, and three subsequent acquittals. As the participants in the conflict tried to generate public support for their respective positions, the debate degenerated into name-calling, hyperbole, and rights talk. This kind of public discourse limits the potential for self-governance and leads to reliance on the courts or other methods of conflict resolution.

Type
Physician-Assisted Suicide
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1997 , pp. 87 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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