Comment by ants_everywhere

> 60% of the patients who died with Kevorkian's help were not terminally ill, and at least 13 had not complained of pain....The report also stated that Kevorkian failed to refer at least 17 patients to a pain specialist after they complained of chronic pain and sometimes failed to obtain a complete medical record for his patients, with at least three autopsies of suicides Kevorkian had assisted with showing the person who committed suicide to have no physical sign of disease. Rebecca Badger, a patient of Kevorkian's and a mentally troubled drug abuser, had been mistakenly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The report also stated that Janet Adkins, Kevorkian's first euthanasia patient, had been chosen without Kevorkian ever speaking to her, only with her husband, and that when Kevorkian first met Adkins two days before her assisted suicide he "made no real effort to discover whether Ms. Adkins wished to end her life," as the Michigan Court of Appeals put it in a 1995 ruling upholding an order against Kevorkian's activity.[26] According to The Economist: "Studies of those who sought out Dr. Kevorkian, however, suggest that though many had a worsening illness... it was not usually terminal. Autopsies showed five people had no disease at all... Little over a third were in pain. Some presumably suffered from no more than hypochondria or depression."[27]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kevorkian

Zak 3 days ago

This doesn't seem to be an example of assisted suicide being recommended to disabled people who didn't want to die. Mainstream medical practice at the time condemned Kevorkian, and anyone seeking out his services was certainly aware that what he offered was death.

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bjourne 3 days ago

Society puts a lot of pressure on the people at the bottom. The chronically ill and the unemployed. That pressure in combination with an option to permanently relive yourself of that pressure is to many functionally equivalent to a recommendation.

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ants_everywhere 3 days ago

Euthanization of the disabled has been a consistent part of the eugenics movement. For example George Bernard Shaw quote
> A part of eugenic politics would finally land us in an extensive use of the lethal chamber. A great many people would have to be put out of existence simply because it wastes other people's time to look after them.
Shaw and other Fabian Society members were supporters of the group now called Dignity in Dying [0], which used to be called The Voluntary Euthanasia Legalisation Society and was founded by a doctor.
Nazi Germany committed involuntary euthanasia of disabled people in a program called Aktion T4 [1]. It's probably not an accident that Dr Kevorkian, an American, started publishing his euthanasia papers in Germany. Before that he was trying to harvest blood and organs from inmates, which is another area where the incentives seem very bad.
I can't comment on how often modern assisted suicide programs recommend it to disabled people who don't want suicide. But it's clear that Kevorkian was not careful about who he recommended assisted suicide to. So given the strong desire of some people to euthanize the disabled against their will, the lack of carefulness is concerning and suggests that it likely happens with some regularity except in exceptionally run programs.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity_in_Dying
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4

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