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Legal Assisted Suicide? - Page 3

On one hand, I have this opinion:
How can a mentally ill person be considered a candidate for assisted suicide? By definition, mental illness connotes the inability to understand logic or even reality, in some cases. How can these be considered as decisions made by a rational, competent person? How can the law assist someone who may not be accountable for their decisions and actions?

On the other hand, I have this opinion:
My nephew was bipolar and unexpectedly took his life last year at age 25. It was stated by one of his professors, also bipolar, that this condition is a terminal disease - nearly every bipolar person ends in suicide at a relatively young age. Would it have eased the situation if he could have prepared his family for it, if we could have had some warning and been able to say goodbye? As it stands, there are many unanswered questions which torment all of the survivors (including me, but especially his parents).

Would it have eased our minds if he had explained and prepared for it? Would his mother have felt better to know that he didn't suffer, that he had someone to help him leave this world? I don't know. I can't know the answer to that, but I think the grief would have been just as heavy as we have experienced it.

We can't condone it, taking one's own life. But we also can't judge those who feel that life is unbearable. We don't walk in their shoes, we can't know or feel another man's sorrow in his heart.

The judgment has to remain between that person and God. Adding people who are, albeit compassionately, assisting a suicide just confuses the mix. I think their judgment should also be reserved for God.

All in my opinion.
Roz

Suicide Assisted Legal

Jack Kevorkian Will Have Limited Freedoms After His Prison Release

Lansing, MI (LifeNews.com) -- There are just two days left until one of the most notorious killers in the medical profession gets out of prison. Jack Kevorkian may have been responsible for the deaths of 130 people but he will have very limited freedoms and abilities during his parole after he is released from prison on Friday. Kevorkian found himself behind bars after he taunted the judicial system in Michigan to put him away by showing a video of him euthanizing a patient on national television. Pro-life advocates have already said they're concerned that Kevorkian will go back to his old antics of killing people and flaunting his activities. "Past experience with this uncontrolled, unethical and unlicensed physician gives us reason to be suspicious of his future behavior," Right to Life of Michigan president Barbara Listing told LifeNews.com yesterday. But they may be heartened by news that corrections officials will be closely monitoring what the retired pathologist does and says. Kevorkian will be required to have frequent visits with his parole officer and must face standard parole conditions such as avoiding contact with felons, drug and alcohol or any behavior that could be considered criminal. But because of his unique status as a bringer of death to the disabled and elderly, Kevorkian will have other restrictions that prisoners don't typically face. Kevorkian can't care of anyone over the age of 42 or who is disabled, he can't be present at any assisted suicide or euthanasia, and, perhaps most pertinent, he can't counsel people how to commit assisted suicide. That could be the most important aspect of his parole as Kevorkian is likely going to hit the lecture circuit as well as publish a book or be portrayed in a movie after he first gets a health checkup.
Ref. https://www.lifenews.com/bio2109.html

Legal Assisted Suicide? History & Civil Business Politics

Jack Kevorkian Delivers Pro-Euthanasia Speech Amid Pro-Life Protests

Gainesville, FL (LifeNews.com) -- As dozens of pro-life advocates rallied outside, assisted suicide crusader Jack Kevorkian delivered an angry and rambling speech. Although he can only talk about euthanasia in a limited fashion, he advocates the legalization of assisted suicide and blasted President Bush, calling him a tyrant. Kevorkian spoke to a sold-out crowd that officials estimated as over 4,000 -- not surprising given the attention focused in the media and at the University of Florida campus on the speech. The student government's speaker's bureau paid $50,000 to host the retired pathologist who was jailed for eight years after killing a disabled patient on national television. He told the audience that he would be violating the terms of his parole to discuss euthanasia in an expanded sense. His attorney, Mayer Morganroth looked on during the speech. However, he said that Greece and Rome used assisted suicide and said the ancient cultures are ahead of ours, even though America exists in a modern time. Kevorkian said he killed about 20 percent of the people who came to him and asked him for his help in taking their lives.
Ref. https://www.lifenews.com/bio2310.html

Page 3 Suicide Assisted Legal

Assisted Suicide Crusader Jack Kevorkian Dies in Hospital

Jack Kevorkian, the infamous assisted suicide advocate who served years in prison for killing a disabled man on national television, died in a hospital today after being admitted for kidney problems and pneumonia.

Kevorkian, known to those who opposed his killing of more than 130 patients via assisted suicide as "Dr. Death," died, apparently of pulmonary thrombosis, at Beaumont Hospital and had just turned 83.

In late May, his attorney informed the media that Kevorkian was rushed to William Beaumont Hospital in suburban Detroit, Michigan Wednesday night after reportedly feeling weak. Mayer Morganroth, his longtime attorney, told the newspaper Kevorkian is not in "grave danger," but indicated his health is poor.

He said, at the time, Kevorkian was reluctant to go to the hospital but is suffering from kidney problems and pneumonia that comes with his advancing age. Morganroth said he expected to stay in the hospital for a few days but he stayed for weeks.

As far back as December 2005, Morganroth explained how prison cause Kevorkian's health to deteriorate quickly, saying "it now appears that the Hepatitis C Dr. Kevorkian contacted while testing blood transfusions given to American soldiers during Vietnam is attacking his liver." Morganroth also said Kevorkian suffers from dangerously high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, temporal arteritis, peripheral arthritis, adrenal insufficiency, chronic pulmonary obstruction disease and cataracts.

"It was peaceful, he didn't feel a thing," Morganroth said of Kevorkian's death, according to the Detroit News. Ref. Source 6

Suicide Assisted Legal

"Peaceful, he didn't feel a thing"? With all of the problems he had, that sounds like a miracle. Did they, perhaps, practice what he preached and assist his departure?