Dr. Death will soon be back among us:
LANSING, Mich. — For nearly a decade, Dr. Jack Kevorkian waged a defiant campaign to help other people kill themselves. The retired pathologist left bodies at hospital emergency rooms and motels and videotaped a death that was broadcast on CBS' "60 Minutes." His actions prompted battles over assisted suicide in many states. But as he prepares to leave prison June 1 after serving more than eight years of a 10- to 25-year sentence in the death of a Michigan man, Kevorkian will find that there's still only one state that has a law allowing physician-assisted suicide — Oregon.
Experts say that's because abortion opponents, Catholic leaders, advocates for the disabled and often doctors have fought the efforts of other states to follow the lead of Oregon, where the law took effect in late 1997.
Kevorkian is ailing, probably terminal. Is it inappropriate to wonder whether a serial killer will take care of his own demise or seek the kind of help he so kindly offered others?
