Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 11, 1990 TAG: 9006110037
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TIMOTHY EGAN THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: PORTLAND, ORE. LENGTH: Long
"They were small things at first," said her husband, Ronald. "We played music together at night, and she would be so frustrated because she couldn't remember a song she'd known all her life. Then her ability to read music started to erode."
About a year ago, doctors here told Janet Adkins that she had Alzheimer's disease, and she began planning the suicide that she carried out last Monday in Michigan, pushing a button on a homemade suicide device to which a doctor has said he had connected her.
Family members, friends and Adkins' minister said she was, in their opinion, fully capable of understanding her actions. She knew exactly what she was doing, they said.
They added that Adkins, 54, had approached her death with the same zest and independence that she had shown during her life.
Her family recounted last week that she played tennis with her 32-year-old son, Neil, the week before, and beat him.
Family members said Adkins believed strongly in a person's right to take his or her own life and that even before her illness set in, she had been a member of the Hemlock Society, a group that promotes death with dignity, often through suicide.
But they added that her decision to go to the Michigan doctor, Jack Kevorkian, was a personal one based on what she saw as her own needs and that it was not part of any plan to draw attention to the doctor or his euthanasia philosophy.
At a brief and simple memorial service Sunday at the First Unitarian Church in Portland, Adkins was remembered as a person who took control of her death because she loved life.
Ronald Adkins said his wife's role in planning the service was part of the "closing process" through which she insisted on keeping control of the ending of her life, even as sickness began to rob her of control.
"It was all definitely planned and calculated and laid out with thought," he said.
Janet Adkins became "pioneer in the battle for death with dignity," said the Rev. Alan Deale. "I have supported Janet's right to decide when she would end her life," he said, adding that the Unitarian Church supports "death with dignity."
In last week's interview, Neil Adkins, the oldest of three sons, said the family had a videotape of his mother, made just a few days before her death, in which she explains her decision.
The family has no plans to make the tape public, saying it was made for the family archive.
Ronald Adkins said the family was "absolutely surprised by the media reaction."
The father and sons said they had agreed to talk to reporters now, hoping that by answering questions, they could contain media attention.
In Oregon, causing or assisting a suicide is a felony. There is no such statute in Michigan. But prosecutors in Oakland County, where Adkins died, are examining conflicting court rulings on the law.
On Tuesday, Richard Thompson, the Oakland County prosecutor, said he would seek a court injunction barring Kevorkian from using the device again.
The doctor said he had set up the device in the back of a van, and that Adkins had administered her own death by pressing a button to receive a lethal injection.
Prosecutors have seized the device, but so far he faces no criminal charges. He said on Wednesday that it would take only a couple of days to build another suicide device.
A musician, teacher, mountain climber, lover of literature, mother of three and grandmother of three who was fluent in French, Adkins is described by those who knew her as a sort of Renaissance woman.
"She had an absolute zest for living," said Clara Cooper, who lived next door for 12 years. "She was always busy. Always doing something new. And she was gutsy."
Adkins, who was born in Longview, Wash., spent most of her life in Portland. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in English literature at Portland State University.
In Portland, Ronald operated his own investment service and Janet taught piano at home and English at the local community college. They raised three children, all boys: Neil, Norman, 28, and Ronald, 26.
After her sons were grown, Janet Adkins took up hang gliding, rode in a hot-air balloon, traveled in the mountains of Nepal and climbed Mount Hood, the glacial peak that is the highest in Oregon.
Last year, on June 12, she was diagnosed by physicians at Good Samaritan Hospital here as having Alzheimer's disease. Her husband and the hospital said Wednesday that doctors told her that after weeks of tests, they had ruled out every other likely cause of her symptoms except for Alzheimer's, an irreversible degeneration of the brain cells that can lead to severe memory loss, dementia and death.
The fourth-leading cause of death in the nation, Alzheimer's disease is considered incurable.
"That just hit like a bombshell," said Ronald. "Her mind was her life."
For the last year, while she remained physically vigorous, Janet had been planning her death. "She believed very strongly in the idea that if you have a terminal illness, it's your right to decide when and how to exit," said her husband.
She consulted friends, ministers, doctors and family members, but her mind was made up. Doctors at the Alzheimer's clinic at Good Samaritan said suicide is never advised as an option.
On average, patients live 10 or more years after the onset of symptoms; in the final phase, they said, patients may be utterly debilitated, crippled in body and mind.
Adkins' sons, who were not in favor of her decision to end her own life, persuaded her to try an experimental treatment.
In January, she was accepted as a patient at the University of Washington Hospital in Seattle. There she received treatment with the drug THA, which has slowed the progress of Alzheimer's in some patients.
"The drug didn't work," said her son, Neil. "From then on, her mind was set. Quality of life was everything with her. She wanted to die with her dignity intact."
by CNB