Phone Campaign Underway To Protest Kevorkian

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Phone Campaign Underway To Protest Kevorkian

GAINESVILLE, FL—A campaign to generate thousands of phone calls to protest the appearance of Jack “Dr. Death” Kevorkian at the University of Florida has been initiated by the Flint Right To Life organization in Flint, Mich.

Kevorkian has reportedly accepted a speaking engagement on Oct. 11 for a $50,000 fee, sponsored by Accent, a student government funded speaker’s bureau at the university. However, the college communications department said last week that no contract has yet been signed with Kevorkian.

The program will reportedly be funded by student activity funds and special fees.

Kevorkian, 79, was released on parole from a Michigan state prison after serving eight years of a 10 to 25 year sentence for second degree murder. He had been convicted in April 1999 for the 1998 poisoning of Youk, 52, a Michigan man afflicted with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Kevorkian had fatally injected drugs in Youk, taping the procedure which was later shown on “60 Minutes”, claiming it was euthanasia or mercy killing but the jury said it was murder. The airing of the tape led to his arrest. Despite repeated efforts by prosecutors to send him to prison, was convicted only for the Youk death.

Although claiming that he’s not advocating assisted suicide, he says that doctors should be allowed to administer drugs to end a patient’s life if the patient is too disabled to do it himself. Suicide is illegal and Oregon is the only state that has passed legislation that allows doctor to assist the terminally ill to end their lives if the patient too disabled to do it themselves. However, there’s a real issue about mental competency.

During an interview in Michigan within days after his release, Kevorkian announced his new “mission” to educate and inform the masses about their rights as citizens. As part of his parole, Kevorkian cannot advocate assisted suicide so he’s engaging in what can only be called doublespeak saying that his NEW mission “is not assisted suicide. My work is effectively done there”, he says. “I’ll do what I can to have it legalized”.

He cannot leave the state of Michigan without approval of the Michigan Parole Board.

Judy Climer, president of Flint Right to Life, is urging that phone calls be made to University of Florida president Machen at 352-392-1311 ( president@... )and the Annual Giving Office at 1-800-279-6796 to “object to the taxpayers of Florida dollars being used to pay for Jack Kevorkian to speak to the student body on Oct. 11”.

Calls can also be placed to the Accent Speech Bureau at 352-392-1665 ext. 306. Their fax is 352-392-8072. Their website www.sg.ufl.edu/accent is not currently on line. Email: accent@...

Although The North Country Gazette could not establish that taxpayer funds are involved, Ms. Climer said that she was told that the monies the students use to pay him from partially from state monies and perhaps federal monies.

“Though it is not in Michigan, it will ripple across America and our students deserve better than Jack Kevorkian”, Ms. Climer said. “There’s enough violence hitting our campuses without adding Dr. Death and his message”.

Bobby Schindler, brother of Terri Schindler Schiavo, the brain injured woman who died in March 2005, after her feeding tube was removed by court order at the behest of her husband, is asking people to sign a petition directed at the university asking them to withdraw their invitation to Kevorkian, to stop him from targeting college students.

“We’re sending this message to our young people that the answer to human suffering and the chronically ill is to kill. That’s extremely dangerous and troubling”, Schindler said. “Join us in telling the president of the University of Florida that it is unacceptable to invite Jack Kevorkian to spread his message of death and violence to the campus”.

“Not surprisingly, our mainstream media has already begun to help the “doctor” use his “plight” as a reason to promote the legalization of assisted suicide — allegedly for the terminally ill – even though we know that many of his victims suffered only for depression”, the Foundation says in circulating a petition to the UF administration. To sign the petition, click on Say No to Dr. Death Petition.

“This is the same University of Florida where Judge Greer (who issued the Schiavo death order) attended school. It is also where bio-ethicist Bill teaches—the same Bill who said in an interview that he believed that (Terri Schiavo) was not a person”, Schindler said.

Kevorkian was in prison when Terri Schiavo died due to premeditated dehydration as a result of more than 10 years of efforts by Schiavo to kill his wife. Kevorkian had stated in a prison interview that he would have killed Terri had her husband asked him to do so. 7-28-07

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/news/2007/07/28/phone_campaign/

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PS - I wish I had the $$ to go and hear him. I wrote my letter to allow him to SPEAK!