{"id":2194,"date":"2011-06-05T15:02:50","date_gmt":"2011-06-05T21:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/?p=2194"},"modified":"2011-06-05T15:06:55","modified_gmt":"2011-06-05T21:06:55","slug":"jack-kevorkian-r-i-p-doctor-death-dies-at-age-83","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/2011\/06\/jack-kevorkian-r-i-p-doctor-death-dies-at-age-83\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Kevorkian R.I.P: Doctor Death Dies At Age 83"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Jack Kevorkian, who was born May 26, 1928, died two days ago, at age 83. <\/p>\n

In the latter phase of his life, Kevorkian campaigned tirelessly to legalize physician-assisted suicide — a subject about which he was intensely passionate (too passionate, some believed) and even served eight years in prison for “acts of euthanasia.” <\/p>\n

From 1990 to 2000, Jack Kevorkian was arrested many, many times for helping more than 100 patients commit suicide. He used injections, carbon monoxide, and his now-infamous “suicide machine,” which he hammered together from scraps for approximately $30. <\/p>\n

“Those he aided had terminal conditions such as multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and malignant brain tumors. When asked in a 2010 interview about how it felt to take a patient\u2019s life, Dr. Kevorkian said, ‘I didn\u2019t do it to end a life. I did it to end the suffering the patient\u2019s going through. The patient\u2019s obviously suffering \u2014 what\u2019s a doctor supposed to do, turn his back?’<\/p>\n

“Dying, he believed, should be an intimate and dignified process, something that many terminally ill people are denied, he said.<\/p>\n

“He garnered a fair amount of support from other medical practitioners, although most thought he was an extremist. In 1995, a group of doctors in Michigan publicly voiced their support for Dr. Kevorkian\u2019s philosophy, stating that they supported a ‘merciful, dignified, medically assisted termination of life.’<\/p>\n

“Shortly after, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that many doctors in Oregon and Michigan supported some form of physician-assisted suicide in certain cases.<\/p>\n

“One of his greatest victories occurred in March 1996 when a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled that mentally competent, terminally ill adults have a constitutional right to die with the aid of medical experts and family members. It was the first federal endorsement of its kind” (source<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Arguably, Jack Kevorkian\u2019s lasting legacy will be in the fact that he (with the invaluable help of his smart and charismatic lawyer Mayer Morganroth<\/a>) so thoroughly raised the world’s awareness about euthanasia, and I, for one, was a supporter of him: obviously, if we each possess the right to our own life — and we do<\/a> — we also (therefore) possess the corollary right to end that life when we choose.<\/p>\n

Death, where is thy sting?<\/p>\n

Jack Kevorkian, MD, jazz musician, oil-painter, euthanasianist: May 26, 1928 \u2013 June 3, 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Kevorkian, who was born May 26, 1928, died two days ago, at age 83. In the latter phase of his life, Kevorkian campaigned tirelessly to legalize physician-assisted suicide — a subject about which he was intensely passionate (too passionate, some believed) and even served eight years in prison for “acts of euthanasia.” From 1990 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Jack Kevorkian R.I.P: Doctor Death Dies At Age 83”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[47],"tags":[1704,1703,1702,1087,1713,1701,1706,1712,1029,564,1705,1707,1709,1708,1711,1710],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2194"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}