Jack Kevorkian Dies at 83 -- Without Assistance! "Assisted Suicide Doctor" Helped 130 People to Die

The Associated Press website reports today (June 3, 2011) that Dr. Jack Kevorkian -- the "assisted suicide doctor" who helped some 130 gravely ill people commit suicide -- died today at a Michigan hospital without seeking the kind of assistance he had given so often in the 1990s.

Kevorkian, 83, died at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, where he had been hospitalized since May 18 with pneumonia and kidney problems. He believed -- right up until his death -- that suicide with the help of a medical professional was a "civil right."

Kevorkian's court trials -- on assisted suicide charges -- in the early and mid-1990s resulted in his acquittal, because Michigan had no law against assisted suicides.

Consequently, the Michigan legislature passed such a law, and in a 1999 trial, Kevorkian was convicted of assisted suicide charges and sent to prison for eight years.