Dr. Jack Kevorkian passed away earlier today. He's certainly a controversial figure and maybe wasn't the best poster child for the assisted suicide cause. I tend to think he was right, even if some of the accusations about his methods make me uncomfortable. There are reports that some of Kevorkian's patients were not actually terminally ill. This is a bit troubling especially in conjunction with the fact that he certainly seemed to rush in many cases to have the assisted suicide performed. A report discovered that many of Kevorkian's patients were killed within 24 hours.
The problem with this is that for someone who is not terminally ill, they could be undergoing a temporary desire for death, something that could be overcome by counseling or referrals to other doctors who could assist with problems. While I think an individual has the right to die on their own terms, I'm not sure I feel comfortable with it being legal for someone to perform an assisted suicide for a non-terminally ill patient since it leads to some of these problems. At the very least, guidelines would need to be put into place to make sure physicians were more thorough than Kevorkian was before going ahead with it.
Kevorkian did shed some light on an important subject. Terminally ill patients should have such an option in order to escape the terrible pain of a long, slow death. Since he gained notoriety, three states (Oregon, Montana, Washington) have passed laws allowing assisted suicide (the Oregon law does have limitation as I mentioned above). In the end, I believe Kevorkian's heart was in the right place, even if I don't agree with everything he did.
The problem with this is that for someone who is not terminally ill, they could be undergoing a temporary desire for death, something that could be overcome by counseling or referrals to other doctors who could assist with problems. While I think an individual has the right to die on their own terms, I'm not sure I feel comfortable with it being legal for someone to perform an assisted suicide for a non-terminally ill patient since it leads to some of these problems. At the very least, guidelines would need to be put into place to make sure physicians were more thorough than Kevorkian was before going ahead with it.
Kevorkian did shed some light on an important subject. Terminally ill patients should have such an option in order to escape the terrible pain of a long, slow death. Since he gained notoriety, three states (Oregon, Montana, Washington) have passed laws allowing assisted suicide (the Oregon law does have limitation as I mentioned above). In the end, I believe Kevorkian's heart was in the right place, even if I don't agree with everything he did.
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