Assisted Suicide Advocate, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Dies at Age 83

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a man who claimed to have assisted in around 130 suicides, died this week. Kevorkian was eighty-three years old and had been hospitalized last month with kidney problems and pneumonia.

In 1990, Dr. Kevorkian aided in the suicide of an Oregon school teacher, the first of around 130 terminally ill individuals he would eventually help die. The woman and Dr. Kevorkian conducted the suicide in Dr. Kevorkian’s van using his suicide machine. Seven years later, Oregon lawmakers approved a statute that allows doctors to prescribe dying patients lethal medication. Nine years later, the United States Supreme Court upheld the legality of Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act which categorized assisted suicide as a legitimate medical practice.

In 1999, a court sentenced Dr. Kevorkian to ten to twenty-five years for the second degree murder of one of the last of the 130 individuals he helped die. After promising to not aid in anymore suicides, Dr. Kevorkian was released from jail early. Al Pacino portrayed Dr. Kevorkian in an HBO movie last year entitled “You Don’t Know Jack,” and received an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his role.

Dr. Kevorkian’s critics dubbed him Dr. Death and Jack the Dripper; his followers portrayed him as the mouth piece for legislative reform. Both sides, however, acknowledge that Dr. Kevorkian prompted a national debate on assisted suicide, euthanasia, and hospice care.

See Keith Schneider, Dr. Jack Kevorkian Dies at 83; A Doctor Who Helped End Lives, The New York Times, Jun. 3, 2011; Jack Kevorkian: How He Made Controversial History, BBC News, Jun. 2, 2011.

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this to my attention.