ANN ARBOR, Michigan (LifeSiteNews) – The University of Michigan (UMich) has sparked controversy by “celebrating” the infamous “Doctor Death” Jack Kevorkian as one of 175 notable alumni to come out of its Medical School.

Kevorkian was a Michigan physician and “right to die” advocate who illegally facilitated the assisted suicides of 130 patients. In 1999 he was sentenced to 10-25 years for his role in the nationally televised death of a man with Lou Gehrig’s disease, but served only eight before being released on parole. He was barred from resuming his most infamous practice, but continued to advocate for euthanasia until his death in 2012 at age 83.

The fall issue of UMich’s “Medicine at Michigan” features is dedicated to “Celebrating 175 years of the Medical School with stories of the ‘leaders and best.’” Entry #141 on the list is Kevorkian, who is credited with having “changed the national conversation on physician-assisted suicide.” 

Author Katie Vloet’s entry, adapted from a longer piece in the school’s Bentley Historical Library, begins with a “typical” correspondence Kevorkian received from a “41-year-old victim of MS” wishing to “end my life peacefully.” It goes on to summarize his career, including his helping to kill 54-year-old Alzheimer’s patient Janet Adkins. “Like so many families that would follow, Adkins’ family publicly thanked Kevorkian for helping to end her suffering,” readers are told.

“Since then, physician-assisted suicide, also called ‘medical aid in dying,’ has become more accepted,” the profile concludes. “It is now legal in 10 states and Washington, D.C., and, according to a 2024 Gallup poll, 71% of Americans believe doctors should be ‘allowed by law to end the patient’s life by some painless means if the patient and his or her family request it.’”

However, as noted by Live Action, UMich internal medicine professor Dr. Kristin Collier and English professor Scott Lyons wrote a joint op-ed in the Michigan Daily condemning the school’s decision to honor Doctor Death.

“Directly enabling the death of a patient under a doctor’s care is antithetical to any coherent understanding of medicine as a vocation that does no harm,” they write. “It is distressing that Medicine at Michigan chose to highlight someone whose entire body of work militates against the core foundations of medicine as a healing profession.”

“Seriously ill patients deserve our utmost compassion and care, and we must do all we can to provide compassionate, symptom-relieving, end-of-life palliative care, including hospice and enhanced caregiver support,” the authors continue. “A just society would be one whose foundation rests on laws protecting people from coercion, experimental drugs and social pressures to die. It is precisely for reasons like these that the American Medical Association clearly states that physician-assisted suicide “is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.”

Illinois is set to become the eleventh state to allow assisted suicide when a euthanasia law signed this month takes effect next year. Legalization bills are also currently being considered in Montana and New York.

As Patients Rights Action Fund (PRAF) executive director Matt Vallière has argued, current euthanasia programs in the United States constitute discrimination against patients with life-threatening conditions in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, as when a state will “will pay for every instance of assisted suicide” but not palliative care, “I don’t call that autonomy, I call that eugenics.”

Live Action’s Bridget Sielicki further notes that “because a paralytic is involved, a person can look peaceful, while they actually drown to death in their own bodily secretions. Experimental assisted suicide drugs have led to the ‘burning of patients’ mouths and throats, causing some to scream in pain.’ Furthermore, a study in the medical journal Anaesthesia found that a third of patients took up to 30 hours to die after ingesting assisted suicide drugs, while four percent took seven days to die.”

Support is available to talk to those struggling with thoughts of ending their lives. The Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988.