A Short History Into Assisted Suicide

Let's take a look at the man who began this phenomenon -- Dr. Jack Kevorkian.

Dr. Kevorkian went about turning the medical world upside down in a very unorthodox way. The physician had people questioning their morals and ethics through his assistance in nearly 100 assisted suicides, with most patients being terminally ill. Before these actions, he was working on medicinal experiments, usually in the form of lethal injections for death-row inmates, which earned him his nickname "Dr. Death." After this occupational phase, he instead focused on giving patients a way out: suicide, but medically induced.

Following his role as the death physician in suicide cases over the years, his home state of Michigan passed a law making his actions a felony. In this eyes of American medicine, the notion of assisted suicide was crumbling the basic foundation in medicine: do no harm. Kevorkian escaped multiple jail sentences by only supplying the drug, and not directly administering it to the patient. As time passed, however, he was eventually taken in and jailed under the label of homicide. As doctors and patients continued to show support for this method, certain states have legalized the act of assisted suicide, but it is very few. What does the public think of this?

This is a gray-area topic, with most people picking an extreme side of the argument, but there are those stuck in the middle with confusing hypotheticals. Is there an age standard? Ailment standard? Family say? Too much liberty, or is this what liberty really means?