Jack Kevorkian: Hero or murderer?

The nation's most controversial advocate of legalizing euthanasia dies — in a hospital, of natural causes. What will his legacy be?

Jack Kevorkian
(Image credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

Jack Kevorkian — the assisted-suicide advocate known as "Dr. Death" — died peacefully at a Michigan hospital on Friday, at age 83. Kevorkian admitted to helping more than 130 terminally ill people commit suicide between 1990 and 2000, using injections, carbon monoxide, and his notorious "suicide machine." Things got complicated in 1998 when he recorded his role helping a man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease commit suicide. Kevorkian was arrested, convicted, and sent to prison for second-degree murder, then paroled in 2007 after promising not to assist in any more suicides. Should he be remembered for killing people, or for helping people end their pain with dignity?

His own death proves Kevorkian was just a murderer: Jack Kevorkian was nothing but a serial killer, says Mark Noonan at Blogs for Victory. "If he was in any way sincere about what he did, he would have hooked himself up to one of his own infernal machines and offed himself when it became clear there was no cure" for his kidney and heart problems. But he went to a hospital, which is where "you go when you want someone, somehow, to keep you alive," because you know life is precious, not something to be thrown away.

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