Jack Kevorkian: Free After 8 Years in Jail

Dr. Jack Kevorkian is prepared to leave jail on June 1st. He has served more than eight years of a 10-25 year sentence in the death of a man from Michigan. The retired pathologist caused controversy by leaving bodies at hospital emergency rooms and motels. He videotaped a death that was then broadcast on CBS' "60 minutes." Kevorkian will get out of jail to find that only Oregon still allows physician-assisted suicide, a law that took effect in late 1997. Since then Catholic leaders, abortion opponents, and doctors have fought other states who are trying to make the same law in their state.This year in Vermont, opponents defeated a measure to make physician-assisted suicide legal. California is fighting the same battle. Hawaii, Wisconsin, and Washington have also had failed bills, according to the Associated Press.

The release of Jack Kevorkian could begin another bout of efforts, some to prevent anyone else from following in his footsteps.

"One of the driving forces of the (Oregon) law was to prevent the Jack Kevorkians from happening," Kate Davenport, who is a communications specialist at the Death with Dignity National Center in Portland, Ore."It wasn't well regulated or sane," she said. "There were just too many potential pitfalls."

The 79-year-old Kevorkian was sometimes criticized by assisted suicide supporters. His unconventional practices was a cause of controversy. To assist in the suicide of his "patients", he used a machine that was his own invention that would administer fatal drugs to their system. He often dropped the bodies off at hospital emergency rooms or even coroner's offices. Sometimes, he let them be discovered in the motel rooms he met the people he wanted to help at.

When Kevorkian was out of jail, some doctors were actually scared to give their dying patients too much pain medication for fear they would be accused of hastening their death.