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Today, on his 78th birthday, Jack Kevorkian, the man known as "Dr. Death," is slowly dying in prison. And, according to his lawyer, Kevorkian seems to have second thoughts about helping people die. For years, Kevorkian was the center of a national debate around the highly controversial questions surrounding physician-assisted suicide or "mercy killing:" Do the terminally ill have the right to choose when and how they die? Do doctors have the ability, even an obligation, to help them die as they choose? Now, as he sits in jail, Kevorkian may have had a change of heart — not about...

Lawyer: Kevorkian's Health Deteriorating 22 minutes ago An attorney for Jack Kevorkian said the assisted-suicide advocate will probably not survive another year if kept in prison, as he again asked the state to grant his client a pardon or commute his sentence. Lawyer Mayer Morganroth said he applied to the state Parole Board and Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Friday seeking a pardon, parole or commutation, citing the 77-year-old's deteriorating health. "Kevorkian has become increasingly frail and has fallen twice, injuring his wrist and fracturing two ribs," Morganroth said in a statement. His blood pressure has gone "through the roof," the...

May 19, 2006 Berkeley, California Well, this was one dramatic week. It all started late Monday night when Scooter, still in obvious distress over the death of his hamster "Jumpy," called to tell me goodbye forever. It seems he couldn't face a world "where little innocent hamsters die for no reason, and Republicans are on the verge of sending everybody they don't like to religious forced-labor camps that are controlled by Halliburton." I guess the fact that the little rat died after Scooter had forgotten to feed him for about a month hadn't influenced Scooter's fatalistic reasoning. I jumped into...

See for example this thread first. For those folks who all wish that they'd died A Franchise to assist suicide? The guy is a jerk! This business won't work-- Can he call his clients "satisfied" ??

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who took a leading role in the Terry Schiavo case, said Sunday it taught him that Americans do not want the government involved in such end-of-life decisions. Frist, considered a presidential hopeful for 2008, defended his call for further examinations of the brain-damaged Florida woman during the last days of a bitter family feud over her treatment. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state. The case became a rallying point for right-to-life advocates, an important segment of the Republican Party. It also drew interest from those supporting the right to refuse life-sustaining medical...

See this thread for example... The Supreme Court said states can decide if you can commit suicide with the aid of a doc (which I think is a crock) if you're sick you had better go hide!

LANSING, Mich. - The state parole board rejected a request to pardon assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian or commute his sentence, despite warnings that he is in grave condition. The 77-year-old former doctor is serving a 10- to 25-year prison sentence for murder for giving a fatal injection of drugs in 1998 to a man with Lou Gehrig's disease. Kevorkian is not eligible for parole until 2007. His lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, warned last month that Kevorkian was in "dire shape" and might not live that long. Kevorkian suffers from high blood pressure, arthritis, cataracts, osteoporosis and Hepatitis C, the lawyer said....

Fieger to run for attorney general SOUTHFIELD - He's baaack. After several years of maintaining a relatively low profile, wellknown legal eagle Geoffrey Fieger announced Tuesday his intention to run for state attorney general in 2006 on the Democratic ticket. Never one to mince words, Fieger used a news conference at his Southfield office to accuse incumbent Attorney General Mike Cox and Republicans in general of bankrupting the state and kowtowing to corporate interests. He singled out Cox, accusing the fi rst-term prosecutor of not doing enough to advance consumer protections and of giving jobs to campaign contributors. "At a...

Incarcerated euthanasia crusader, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, says when he's released from prison he won't help anyone end his life by assisted suicide until the law makes it legal, but if he could go back ten years, he would have taken Terri Schiavo as a "patient" if her husband Michael had come to him. Kevorkian, 77, is serving a 10 to 25 year sentence for second degree murder in an assisted suicide case where he injected a patient suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease with a fatal dose of drugs. He is eligible for parole in 2007.

Kevorkian gives TV interview from prison LAPEER, Mich. (AP) -- If released from prison, Jack Kevorkian plans to use the legal system to campaign for changes to assisted-suicide laws, the former doctor said in an interview from prison. Kevorkian spoke with MSNBC's Rita Cosby during a televised interview that was scheduled to air on the network at 9 p.m. EDT Thursday. In excerpts from the interview released to the media in advance of its airing, the 77-year-old said that if he is granted parole in 2007, his earliest possible release date, he plans to travel and visit family as well...

Time is running out for the family of Terri Schiavo. A federal judge in Florida today refused an emergency request made by the brain-damaged woman's parents to order the reinsertion of her feeding tube. The Schindlers then asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to review the ruling. Full Coverage: The Terri Schiavo Case Schindlers, Kevorkian Discuss Schiavo Case Baby Survives Long Trip to Emergency Care Enter Emeril's Breakfast in Bed Contest As of Friday morning, Schiavo, 41, has been without food or water for almost seven days, and her father and sister say they can see...

Euthanasia Definitions * Euthanasia: the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependent human being for his or her alleged benefit. (The key word here is "intentional". If death is not intended, it is not an act of euthanasia) * Voluntary euthanasia: When the person who is killed has requested to be killed. * Non-voluntary: When the person who is killed made no request and gave no consent. * Involuntary euthanasia: When the person who is killed made an expressed wish to the contrary. * Assisted suicide: Someone provides an individual with the information, guidance, and means to take...

Yes, FReepers, Dr Kevorkian (from his jail cell) has made his final selections. Here they are, starting with Kevorkian's top selections to drive the Dims into oblivion: 10. Bill Clinton 9. Harold Ickes 8. ex-Rep Martin Frost 7. John Edwards 6. Jesse Jackson 5. Al Sharpton 4. Nancy Pelosi 3. John Kerry 2. Dennis Kuchinch 1. Howard Dean

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to block the nation's only law allowing doctors to help terminally ill patients die more quickly. The appeal from Attorney General John Ashcroft had been expected since May, when a lower court ruled the federal government could not punish Oregon doctors who prescribed lethal doses of federally controlled drugs. Oregon voters approved the law and since 1998 more than 170 people have used it to end their lives. Most had cancer. The Bush administration has argued that assisted suicide is not a ``legitimate medical purpose'' and that doctors...

A lawyer for Jack "Dr. Death" Kevorkian asked the Michigan parole board Monday to recommend the governor release his client from prison. The request comes a week after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal by the euthanasia advocate, WWJ-AM, Detroit, reported. The former pathologist's lawyer asked the board to recommend either a pardon or a commutation, either of which would free the 75-year-old activist, who has been in prison since he was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1998 poisoning of Thomas Youk, a Lou Gehrig's disease victim whose death Kevorkian called a mercy killing. Youk's death...

Southfield, MI (LifeNews.com) -- In an interview with LifeNews.com, Geoffrey Fieger, said that he is filing the sole wrongful death suit for the family of Tamiia Russell, the 15-year-old Detroit girl who died following an abortion at the WomanCare of Southfield abortion facility. "I am the attorney in the case," Fieger told LifeNews.com. "There can only be one wrongful death suit per case in Michigan, and I am representing the family" Fieger, the attorney who represented assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, added that Russell's mother and grandmother had retained him as their representative. There has been some dispute as to...

DETROIT (AP) — An attorney for Jack Kevorkian is seeking to have the assisted suicide proponent pardoned, or his sentence commuted. Mayer Morganroth said Tuesday he filed the necessary papers with both Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the state Department of Corrections. The announcement came the same day an Oakland County judge denied a motion seeking to have Kevorkian released because of health problems. The request to the governor was filed last month, reported The Daily Oakland Press. Morganroth said there was little to be gained from keeping the ailing 75-year-old in prison. Kevorkian was sentenced to 10 to 25 years...

Howard Dean advocates Kevorkian-style medicine. Former Vermont governor and physician Howard Dean touts his medical experience as a reason to support his run for the presidency — and well he should. Medicine is a noble calling — when, that is, doctors adhere to "Do no harm" values. Unfortunately, Dean's recent support of assisted suicide and euthanasia shows that he apparently doesn't believe in the Hippocratic values that have served doctors and their patients so well for 2,500 years. The Hippocratic Oath requires physicians to protect the lives and welfare of their patients and "keep them from harm and injustice." Toward...

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, imprisoned in Michigan for assisted suicide, is being called upon as an expert witness to help in a pollution case in Brunswick. But don't expect the man known nationally as Dr. Death to appear in a Glynn County courtroom. Lawyers for the nearly 200 people suing the former owners of a chemical plant on the Turtle River are planning to present his testimony by either a written or taped deposition. Kevorkian is serving 10 to 25 years in prison after giving CBS a videotape of one of his physician-assisted suicides. "Back in the 1970s he was doing...

Jack Kevorkian, the doctor jailed for participating in physician-assisted suicides, is expected to be used as an expert witness in a Brunswick pollution case. Kevorkian is expected to provide a written or taped deposition from prison for lawyers of the nearly 200 people suing Allied Signal Incorporated, which formerly owned LCP Chemicals' Turtle River chemical plant. Kevorkian, who is serving out a ten-to-25-year prison sentence in Michigan, did research in the 1970s on mercury and its toxicity.