Dr. Jack Kevorkian, "suicide machine" inventor, jazz musician and painter, has died

Jack "Doctor Death" Kevorkian died today at age 83, after being hospitalized in Michigan for kidney and heart problems, and pneumonia.

His attorney, Mayer Morganroth, said it appears Kevorkian suffered a pulmonary thrombosis when a blood clot from his leg broke free and lodged in his heart. With Kevorkian was his niece Ava Janus and Morganroth. "It was peaceful, he didn't feel a thing," Morganroth said. Morganroth said there were no artificial attempts to keep Kevorkian alive and no plans for a memorial.

He invented a "suicide machine" (shown in this photo) to help the terminally ill end their lives.

He was also a jazz musician and a painter (the image at left is one of his works).

Below, one of the tracks from his album Kevorkian Suite: Very Still Life, which you can buy online.

Photo (Reuters): In 2008, Kevorkian announces he is running as Independent for a seat in the US Congress.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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kibbee

Truly a forward thinking man. The laws are so odd. Doctors are allowed to put you in medically induced coma and wait until you die “naturally” but they aren’t allowed to actually end your life if you so wish. Some countries have saner laws. I think Switzerland allows doctor assisted suicide if I’m not mistaken. It’s funny how we think nothing of putting down an animal that has no chance of life, because it’s more human than making them live in pain, but for a person, it’s completely unacceptable.
- arikol
  
  Yes kibbee, the laws are indeed odd. And at odds with morality and compassion.
  
  We have animals put down so they don’t suffer, because we care for them, but when it comes to our own grandparents we humans are as likely to have them kept artificially alive and in pain..
  
  We are a strange animal.
Blaine

Apparently, also the owner of the world’s largest wallet.
grs

I wonder if the Suicide Machines will play a show today.
- Anonymous
  
  @ grs: The Suicide Machines still hold at least one of the slots in my car’s cd player at all times. Usually 2.
  
  @ Modano: What does SG have to do with Jack Kevorkian (other than, I assume, several of them allegedly having a crush on him)? Last I heard they were jumping the shark whilst being towed behind a much faster shark with laser beams attached to its skull on an episode of CSI:New York. Ah, yes, Missy’s ‘made for TV’ version of ‘what it means to be an SG’. LOL. Thanks for that. Did they ever figure out how those girls got out of Sean’s basement?
Antinous / Moderator

Compose yourselves, please, or I’ll make sure that you rest in peace for a while.
Anonymous

Judging by the wonderfully tolerant, reasonable and even tempered comments I’ve read I’d have to guess that this article has been featured on Fark. Well I can’t say I approve of all of Jack’s methods and I can’t even say I liked the man, but if I suffering some form of terminal illness like Alzheimer’s I’d have to hang onto every last minute I could, but once I was no longer me I’d have to call it quits rather than waste away.

However, to assume that my life is mine and mine alone is extremely selfish irregardless to what value I place on my own life and anyone who has extended contact with us shares in our life and I know several people who would be very upset if I chose simply to die.
- Gulliver
  
  @ Anon #41
  
  However, to assume that my life is mine and mine alone is extremely selfish irregardless to what value I place on my own life and anyone who has extended contact with us shares in our life and I know several people who would be very upset if I chose simply to die.
  
  Yet it is your choice to entangle your life with others (one I heartily approve of, FWIW). As it stands the law makes an a priori blanket claim on everyone’s life with the effect of isolating from their loved ones anyone who rejects that claim and chooses to end their life.
  
  I wholeheartedly agree that suicide is selfish, cowardly and tragic unless the individual is suffering beyond all help. But I don’t recognize society’s claim on my life and I won’t make a claim on the lives of any who do not wish it. I and I alone own me.
  
  I doubt I would stand by while someone commits suicide. I lack the stomach for it. But, although I would physically intervene to stop them, I would be unjust in so doing.
  
  I think we can all agree that, whether or not suicide is a just right, it is a horrible and hurtful thing for a healthy person to do and most, if not all, of us would do what we could to prevent it.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    I think that suicide is a healthy way to end a happy life and that more people should embrace it. If you can’t enjoy life anymore and you want to end it, why not? As to hurting the people around you — if they want you to continue your suffering for their benefit, you really shouldn’t have those kind of people around you at all. That’s not love, that’s selfishness to the point of malice.
    - Gulliver
      
      My thinking if that if a person is suffering and there’s no way to heal their suffering, then you’re correct. But a lot of suicides are a result of depression, and that is a treatable illness. I’d want to do everything I could to make life worth living before I’d be able to truthfully say to someone I care about that I understand them making such a choice.
      
      I do think it’s a travesty that our society forces terminal patients to suffer as long as medicine can prolong their life.
      
      But despite what the Christian right preaches, our society does not recognize a right to life, it only recognizes a right to remain alive. For all intents and purposes, under modern Western law human beings are communal property. That’s slavery, not the worst kind of slavery by a long shot and I’m emphatically not comparing it to the kind of slavery that word normally and understandably evokes; but slavery is still slavery and it’s still unjust.
Modano

I’ll pay an extra long visit to the Suicide Girls today, in his honor.
LukeWhite

Physicians, particularly those of us who spend most of our time in the intensive care unit, have to deal with this question a lot.

It seems to me there are two groups of those who defend Kevorkian:

1. Those who believe that people should not have to endure intolerable agony simply to support some abstract concept of life’s sacredness.

2. Those who believe that people should be free to choose to end their life whenever, and however they choose, and free to enlist others in assisting in whatever capacity they choose.

I think the first is far more defensibly than the second. Medicine has a long history of ignoring pain, minimizing its severity, and causing it for the sake of small or hypothetical benefit. This is changing. Few physicians or medical ethicists will dispute that there are points at which it is justified to relieve pain even if that relief hastens death.

We do this all the time–I guarantee that the general current is not doctors pushing for pointless treatments while patients just beg to be done with it: quite the opposite. I routinely, after explaining the principle of double effect to families, give medication to ease pain that happens to also stop breathing. Every good doctor who deals with dying patients does.

However. When you are critically ill it will sometimes feel as if you’re going to die. At least once or twice, you will probably want to. Most people who are critically ill survive. And they do so, regrettably, after a lot of pain because we really just don’t have methods to heal people from most maladies without some pain involved. It would be a grave, grave error to give people carte blanche to end their lives with the assistance of one or two physicians. Patients usually have a poor sense of what their prognosis is, and pain clouds that further. *Physicians* usually have a poor sense of a patient’s prognosis, and patients’ pain clouds *their* judgment.

Some illnesses are obviously terminal. Everyone has at least one terminal illness over the course of their life. It is rare to know which one it will be, even when you have it. To shorten life for the sake of easing pain is sometimes–not always–defensible. To end life on someone’s behalf is a very different principle, and one Kevorkian was far too cavalier in implementing.
- Gulliver
  
  To end life on someone’s behalf is a very different principle, and one Kevorkian was far too cavalier in implementing.
  
  Thank you for a considered perspective. I have a low opinion of Kevorkian for precisely this reason. Although I believe it is wrong to deprive any person of ownership of their life, that does not make everyone who would would help them end it at the drop of a hat morally praiseworthy.
Palefire

Kevorkian, his beliefs and his actions are polarizing topics. They strike at the heart of many of our own individual foundational beliefs about personal freedom, dignity, suffering and the value of life and how that is expressed.

Like many here, I have very strong opinions on the topic too.

I hope it could be said, regardless of whether one supports Kevorkianâ€™s position or not, that it has forced people to examine why they hold the beliefs they have on the subject.
Nash Rambler

This makes me very sad; I had a great amount of respect for Kevorkian and his values concerning human life and dignity. Even when the press was lambasting him, he stuck by his guns for the sake of terminally ill people.
- noen
  
  Nash Rambler honked:
  “Even when the press was lambasting him, he stuck by his guns for the sake of terminally ill people.”
  
  60 percent of Dr. Kevorkian’s victims were not in fact terminally ill.
  
  “I had a great amount of respect for Kevorkian and his values concerning human life and dignity.”
  
  Three of of Dr. Kevorkian’s victims had no disease at all. 17 suffered from chronic pain but were not referred to pain management which could have helped them to manage their pain and likely changed their determination to commit suicide. Dr. Kevorkian committed medical malpractice by not reviewing his patient’s medical history. If we accept suicide as an acceptable treatment for a terminal illness then Dr. Kevorkian committed medical malpractice by not properly diagnosing his patients and conducting little more than a superficial phone interview.
  
  It is immoral to assist in the death of those who are not terminally ill. It is immoral to assist in the suicide of those suffering from clinical depression who’s condition is treatable or who have no disease at all. It is immoral to use other people’s suffering to promote yourself. Murder is immoral and Dr. Kevorkian is guilty of murder.
  
  Dr. Kevorkian was terminally ill with Hep C and yet did not himself commit suicide. This strongly suggests that his stated reasons in favor of assisted suicide were not his operant reasons and that other factors, like self promotion, were in play.
  - Seraphim_72
    
    “Dr. Kevorkian was terminally ill with Hep C and yet did not himself commit suicide.” And that was his choice to make.
    
    There are also people that have never had an abortion that are pro-choice and NAACP members that like sitting in the back of the bus. Life is weird that way.
ill lich

“We all got it comin’, kid.” — William Munny out of Missouri
IronEdithKidd

Rest in peace, Dr. Jack.
Anonymous

@noen – No person should have to suffer and die against their will, and if they decide to end their life it is nobody else’s business. If you want to gurgle away your last moments in a pile of dying flesh, have at it. We treat our dogs better. Dr. Kevorkian offered a dignified way out and we should thank him for it.
Quiche de Resistance

Real shame he didn’t get a chance to kill himself.
Cydonia

One year ago, my dog fell ill with cancer. He was fourteen years old, and I had had him since I was three years old. My family, myself included, loved that dog. He kept getting sicker, and we knew that he was going to die. When we visited him at the animal hospital, he was very obviously in pain. My family unanimously decided to have him euthanized and end his pain. No one would disagree to doing this, and I have never regretted our decision.

If we do this for a beloved animal and it is considered the right choice, why can’t we do this for a human?
- Wally Ballou
  
  If Kevorkian had confined his “practice” to the truly terminally ill, as validated by someone other than himself, there would be much less reason to condemn him.
  - Anonymous
    
    If Kevorkian had confined his “practice” to the truly terminally ill, as validated by someone other than himself, there would be much less reason to condemn him.
    
    Instead he made it possible for people who bluntly stated they wanted to die to do so, relatively painlessly, cleanly, and conveniently.
    
    The law apparently assumes that any person who expresses the wish to die is misguided. Such a person is to be kept alive against his own will at all costs. That is what Kevorkian was fighting.
    
    Such a strange people we are. We continue to execute alleged criminals even though we know that some percentage of them are innocent. But a law abiding citizen who merely wishes to have a clear exit path is denied it.
Anonymous

The right to die shouldn’t be limited to the terminally ill. Everyone has the right to end their life when and how they choose, for whatever reason they choose. Dr. Kevorkian understood that.
jphilby

In a world with little compassion, the compassionate man is king. Thanks for pioneering, Jack.
Irene Delse

As I don’t know enough facts about what Dr Kevorkian did or did not, and before googling for more information on the subject, I’m not going to comment on his career. But I’d like to offer a personal testimony about suicide and wanting to end one’s life.

Last year, a person who was very close to me committed suicide. She was not terminally ill, although she was quite old and suffered from several chronic and debilitating conditions. As a result, she was often in pain, sometimes great pain, and it couldn’t be managed by ordinary painkillers. (Maybe her doctors weren’t doing their best, I don’t know exactly the details.) It didn’t help that this person also suffered from severe chronic depression and that anti-depressants had ceased to do anything for her. She could hardly sleep, had anxiety attacks, etc. She might have had better opportunities for treatment (both for her physical illnesses and for her mental problem) if she agreed to be admitted to a hospital specializing in the elderly. It was a prospect she faced in the near future and she hated the idea. She also detested the fact of being a chronic invalid and of having bouts of not thinking clearly and realizing it afterward.

She was very lucid most of the times, however, and it was during these periods that she began planning to end her life. She gathered information by herself on pro-assisted suicide websites and in medical books. She also talked about it with members of the family. Most of the people she approached were very reluctant to even discuss such an eventuality. She would have liked to say goodbye to loved ones before deciding to end her life, and ideally to have someone nearby in her last moments. I tried honestly to listen to her, although it evoked in me conflicting emotions. I agreed to be the go-to person for medical personnel in case she became unconscious and a decision had to be made to prolong artificially her life or not. On the matter of suicide, in the end, I told her that I understood her feelings, but that I couldn’t face the prospect of being near her while she died. I also explained that, as the law in our country didn’t allow assisted suicide, I was afraid of legal consequences in case she died and I was linked to her death.

All this was several months before, one day, she took her life. She didn’t tell anybody before doing it, and shocked terribly one family member who happened to be in the same house at the time and discovered her cold.

She died quickly and painlessly, but didn’t get to say goodbye to anybody. Today, I have one regret: not having done more, maybe even risked a trial, to be there with her.
Anonymous

I know there are arguments for both sides and everyone is entitled to their opinion, though i think everyone has the choice to to what they want with their body and their life, the government allows tattoos and cosmetic surgery, they don’t make us all dress the same or live the same, so if someone decides they want to be done with this life and move on to the next they should be given that choice to do it safely and with dignity, allowing friends and family to come to terms with it and accept it, instead of forcing people to suffer or commit suicide on their own shocking their fam and friends. We take our animals in and get them euthanized when we know they are suffering or too old, why doesn’t the government give humans the same respect? The fact we can communicate what we want should be recognized! It’s just like the rights to gay marriage, it’s their life not ours, so stop trying to make people suffer and just let them live or not live however they want. If you don’t like their choice or opinion than mind your own business and keep your own opinions, sharing your opinions is one thing but there is no reason to badger people about how u feel because ultimately their gunna do what they want, and their gunna lose respect for you because you can’t shut your mouth.
Anonymous

“Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamp”
Let’s change that. and sell the stamps to raise money for the terminally ill.
Goodbye Dr.K.
Anonymous

And with strange aeons, even death may die.
Anonymous

Thank you for helping my aunt, Dr. Kevorkian. Rest in peace.
arikol

May he rest in peace. Kevorkian showed real compassion and a respect for life by helping dying people do so with dignity and without the excruciating pain they would otherwise have suffered.
- noen
  
  “May he rest in peace. Kevorkian showed real compassion and a respect for life by helping dying people do so with dignity and without the excruciating pain they would otherwise have suffered.”
  
  Total nonsense. Kevorkian was a vicious man who committed murder. He was a sick and twisted man with a sick and twisted morality who played on people at their most vulnerable for publicity, and then killed them.
  
  Good riddance.
  - Talia
    
    *citation needed*
    - noen
      
      Talia opined:
      “*citation needed*”
      
      That Dr. Kevorkian was convicted of murder is a fact. The google, I’m sure you have heard of it? The rest of my comment was opinion, which does not need a cite since it is my opinion.
      - Anonymous
        
        Laws are a social construct, social constructs are inherently subjective, therefore laws are subjective. Being convicted of being something in a court of law does not mean that they are actually guilty of their crime. It just means that other people found them guilty. For further reading, please see every controversial court case in the entire written history of Europe.
      - smaier69
        
        Yes, we’ve heard of “the google”. Perhaps you should use it to find out the details of why he was convicted of “murder” rather than paraphrasing a newspaper or blog headline. Legal verbage for the sake of brevity does not give way to warping the common definition of said nomenclature.
        
        You are correct, though. You have your opinion and are completely entitled to it.
        
        I would like to see just how steadfast your opinion is when faced with your or a loved one’s slow, painful and degrading death. Aside from religious delusions of g*d paying you back in the afterlife for the pain and suffering, I think the options Dr. K fought for on behalf of the rest of us work more to better our society than a pretend state of self-righteousness.
        
        …my opinion.
      - CLP
        
        When you said Kevorikian’s actions were “for publicity”, that wasn’t merely an opinion, but an assertion about Kevorkian’s motivations, for which you provided no evidence.
        
        The sad thing is that you are right–Kevorkian was an activist, and the way he conducted these assisted suicides was designed to bring attention to his cause. For example, in the case that lead to his murder conviction, he provided a videotape to 60 Minutes of the suicide. Here’s an excerpt of that segment. As you can see in the segment, he told 60 Minutes that he was providing the video to further his cause.
    - Wally Ballou
      
      From the Detroit Free Press:
      
      In reviewing the lives and deaths of 47 people whose suicides have been publicly linked to Kevorkian since June 1990, Free Press reporters interviewed hundreds of people and examined thousands of pages of documents, including medical records, autopsy reports, marriage and divorce records, police files, personal notes and letters.
      
      The investigation also debunks perceptions that Kevorkian only helps people who are terminally ill — likely to die within six months — or are in agonizing pain.
      
      In fact, at least 60 percent of Kevorkian’s suicide patients were not terminal. At least 17 could have lived indefinitely and, in 13 cases, the people had no complaints of pain.
      
      Many friends and relatives of the people who committed suicide with Kevorkian weren’t even aware he had a written set of standards. But they believe he is willing to suspend almost any rule to accommodate people who really want to die.
      
      Examining the Kevorkian suicides, the Free Press found that in clear violation of his own written standards:
      
      Kevorkian has failed to consult psychiatrists, even when dealing with depressed people.
      
      In a 1992 article setting out his rules for physician- assisted suicides, Kevorkian wrote it is always mandatory to bring in a psychiatrist because a person’s “mental state is . . . of paramount importance.” But the Free Press found at least 19 cases in which Kevorkian did not contact psychiatrists.
      
      In at least five of those cases, the people who died had histories of depression.
      
      Kevorkian has failed to observe minimum waiting periods before helping people to die.
      
      He has stated that after signing a formal request, a person must always wait at least 24 hours before getting help to commit suicide. But the Free Press found at least 17 instances in which Kevorkian’s first meeting with the person was also his last. In at least five of these, less than three hours passed from the signing of the request to the moment of death. In one case, the waiting period was one hour.
      
      Kevorkian has failed to consult with pain specialists and other medical experts, even when the need was clearly indicated.
      
      Kevorkian has endorsed a written rule requiring that a pain expert be consulted in any case where “pain is a major factor” in a suicidal patient’s complaints. But out of 33 cases in which people came to Kevorkian complaining of chronic pain, he failed to consult a pain specialist in at least 17.
      
      Kevorkian has failed to discover financial or family problems that may have contributed to a patient’s wish to die.
      
      Much more at the link.
      
      http://www.freep.com/article/20070527/NEWS05/70525061/SUICIDE-MACHINE-PART-1-Kevorkian-rushes-fulfill-his-clients-desire-die
  - arikol
    
    He was convicted of murder, yes. That only shows that morality and compassion have been lost from the law.
    
    If you’ve seen people break down from diseases such as ALS and the pain inherent in that, or if you’ve worked in care for the elderly you would see the humanity in allowing people to die when they so choose. Very many elderly people who have come to terms with the fact that they don’t have too long left have the one wish that they get to go without suffering. Talk to medical professionals and ask them how THEY want to die. What THEIR choice would be if they got ALS or another form of terminal MND. Those that I know have a short and simple answer which has been fully thought through.
    
    I hope that I will be able to choose not to die in excruciating pain if I get a disease like that from which there is no recovery, and only increasing levels of pain and fear.
    
    We allow our pets the dignity of death without them having to scream, puke and shit themselves while they die. We aren’t we allowed the same?
    
    Kevorkian fought the system, and showed the horrible inconsistencies between the law and compassion. He tried to circumvent the law by making a machine which allowed the person to end their own lives in peace, but made the serious legal mistake of providing too much assistance to people who had lost the ability to operate the machine. The relatives took serious issue with this as they did not respect the wishes of the deceased, and painted Kevorkian as a manipulative killer. When someone is in the last stages of ALS then no manipulation is needed.
    - TheViolentVicar
      
      You asked, above: “We allow our pets the dignity of death without them having to scream, puke and shit themselves while they die. We aren’t we allowed the same?”
      
      There are probably multiple reasons, but, in my respecful view, most all of them can be traced to organized superstition.
    - noen
      
      arikol opined:
      “He was convicted of murder, yes. That only shows that morality and compassion have been lost from the law.”
      
      Your argument is false. That someone is convicted of murder does not imply that the law is immoral. It suggests the opposite.
      
      “If you’ve seen people break down from diseases [...] you would see the humanity in allowing people to die when they so choose.”
      
      The question of whether or not we as a society should allow Dr. assisted suicide is a separate issue. Dr. Kevorkian actively murdered patients who were not terminally ill or even had any disease at all. Those actions would be murder even in countries where assisted suicide is legal. Countries where it is legal also do not allow those suffering from mental illness to choose suicide.
      
      “Very many elderly people who have come to terms with the fact that they don’t have too long left have the one wish that they get to go without suffering.”
      
      My father passed away from metastatic CA a couple years ago. He did not suffer. It is simply not true that our only choice is between suffering a long terminal illness and suicide. It is not true that most of the elderly would choose suicide if given the choice.
      
      “We allow our pets the dignity of death without them having to scream, puke and shit themselves while they die. We aren’t we allowed the same?”
      
      Because we are not mere animals. We have higher cognitive abilities and can value life in a way that no other animal can.
      
      Dr. Kevorkian “made the serious legal mistake of providing too much assistance to people who had lost the ability to operate the machine.”
      
      There was some question whether or not that person had changed his mind and that Dr. Kevorkian ignored this fact. I think that Dr. Kevorkian directly murdered a man in order to “prove something” to the authorities. Taunting the police to arrest you is a classic ploy of serial murderers.
      
      Regardless, Dr. Kevorkian was rightly guilty of murder because he directly administered a fatal dose of a medication he was not licensed to give. Even if assisted suicide were legal participating in one when you are not a licensed MD is murder. We are a nation of laws, not men. Individuals do not get to decide what is or isn’t permissible. Still, if you choose to go outside the law you should be willing to accept the consequences of you decision.
      - Gulliver
        
        Individuals do not get to decide what is or isn’t permissible.
        
        My body and my life belong to me and no one else. Not Kevorkian. Not the State. Not you. My body, my choice.
        
        I respect your opinion to the contrary, but I disagree that my life does not belong to me, irrespective of what the law says. And – although I would balk at helping someone commit suicide, whether or not I was medically qualified and legally empowered to, and believe I would go through a very great deal of suffering and indignity before ever contemplating it for myself – I would do nothing to claim ownership over someone else.
  - Anonymous
    
    So you’d rather lay in bed, helpless, suffering indescribable pain, on a respirator, feeding tube, nothing left of what made you ‘you’ to speak of…you want to live like that? You want to put your family through that? You want your family to put YOU through that? Is that how you want to go?
    
    I wonder what your family would prefer, should (heaven forbid) they ever be in such a condition. What if they don’t want to ‘live’ like that?
    
    With respect to your opinions, Dr. Kevorkian did as he was asked, by his patients. I believe the patients and their families would not call it murder.
    
    You state “Three of of Dr. Kevorkian’s victims had no disease at all. 17 suffered from chronic pain but were not referred to pain management which could have helped them to manage their pain and likely changed their determination to commit suicide” yet right there in that statement you are referencing the choice of the patient. Do you know for a fact all that transpired up to the point where the patient made their OWN choice? You don’t know if the patients were referred to pain management or not. The blame for this does not lay with Dr. Kevorkian, but with the patients’ own families or their doctors for not doing what..changing the patients’ minds?
    
    What you are saying is that the patients were not intelligent enough to have made their
    own decisions.
    
    You are also quoting opposing sources, but nowhere in your statements do you reference the families own statements, their own feelings about the decisions their loved ones made. Nor are you quoting any statements made by the patients themselves, all of which are documented.
    
    With all respect to your own opinions, that is what they are…opinions. So are all the others on this blog. I hope you respect those too.
Tau’ma

Now I am going to tell you a mystery: we are not all going to fall asleep, but we are all going to be changed, instantly, in the twinkling of an eye, when the last trumpet sounds. The trumpet is going to sound, and then the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed, because this perishable nature of ours must put on imperishability, this mortal nature must put on immortality. And after this perishable nature has put on imperishability and this mortal nature has put on immortality, then will the words of scripture come true: Death is swallowed up in victory. Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin comes from the Law. Thank God, then, for giving us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. So, my dear brothers, keep firm and immovable, always abounding in energy for the Lord’s work, being sure that in the Lord none of your labours is wasted.
smaier69

One of my personal contemporary heroes.

I had a huge amount of respect and admiration for your work and cause, Mr. Kavorkian. Know that all political and religious douchebags aside, the people of this country, this earth will (eventually, I sincerely hope) benefit from the ground you broke and the chains you yanked. You left an indelible mark on our history and future. With any luck the fervor over whether or not our most fundamental or rights is actually ours will die down, and common sense and compassion will prevail.

Rest in peace, sir. I hope my occasional passionate debates with other folks over your ideas contributes to your legacy.

/sad
facetedjewel

I hope there are physicians still brave enough to follow his example of compassion. As the Boomers get older and sicken, we going to want/need them. Our generation is all about fixing our bodies, but what we can’t fix…we’d like to be able to choose.

I’m allergic to opiates and we can’t all move to Oregon.
Isoko

Who knew re: the Jazz. That’s some pretty good stuff.
- Bemopolis
  
  Hey man, you have to listen to the notes he *doesn’t* euthanize.
arikol

How right you are.
Even though I disagree on some of Noen’s points, he/she is most definitely not a troll.

@Noen, thank you for your balanced counterarguments, and reasoned replies. I stand corrected on some items regarding Kevorkian, and fully agree that he violated the law.

If Kevorkian did indeed manipulate people or disregard someone’s change of heart then that is very, very, wrong (legally and morally).

I do still maintain that the law is wrong on this, and if practitioners had clear cut rules and a person’s wishes could be recorded legally then this kind of behaviour would (or should) not be an issue.

And of course you are right that not everyone just wants to die, but surprisingly many of the people I know or have worked with have quite strong thoughts on the matter, with medical professionals expressing the wish that they would like to have this option. That doesn’t mean that everyone will use it, but just knowing that it’s an option can be reassuring.