ROYAL OAK, Mich. — Jack Kevorkian, who became the face of the assisted-suicide movement while helping a self-estimated 130 people kill themselves in the 1990s, died June 3.
Kevorkian, 83, passed away in a Royal Oak, Mich., hospital, where he was being treated for heart and kidney problems, according to the Detroit Free Press.
“Dr. Death,” as Kevorkian was known, became famous as an assisted-suicide advocate and practitioner. A pathologist, Kevorkian flaunted Michigan law but managed to escape murder convictions in four trials, the Free Press reported. He was convicted of second-degree murder for his part in a 1998 euthanasia death and served eight years and a month before being paroled in 2007.
In a 2006 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Kevorkian said he still supported assisted suicide but thought he should have tried to change the law rather than assist illegally in people’s deaths.
While Kevorkian gained widespread media attention and a number of supporters as an advocate for so-called “death with dignity,” about 70 percent of those he helped die were not terminally ill, said pro-life, bioethics specialist Wesley Smith in a 2006 article for The Weekly Standard. “Most were disabled and depressed,” Smith wrote. “At least five had no discernible illnesses upon autopsy.”
Upon learning of Kevorkian’s death, Smith wrote on his blog, “Kevorkian was a disturbed man who, I fear, understood his society — and the media — all too well. And that may be his legacy. He perceived how far some will bend to rationalize even the most egregious wrongdoing or advocacy if the excuse is relieving suffering. Time will tell if he was also a prophet of a dark utilitarian society to come.”
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