Reuters:  Assisted suicide advocate, Jack Kevorkian, known as "Dr. Death" for helping more than 100 people end their lives, died early Friday at age 83.  Kevorkian died at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, where he had been hospitalized for about two weeks with kidney and heart problems, said Mayer Morganroth, Kevorkian's attorney and friend.  "Kevorkian, recently found to have liver cancer, died from a pulmonary embolism," said Neal Nicole, a longtime friend who aided him in nearly all of his 130 admitted suicides.  Some viewed him as a hero who allowed the terminally ill to die with dignity, while his harshest critics reviled him as a cold-blooded killer who preyed on those suffering from chronic pain and depression.  Most of his clients were middle-aged women.  Kevorkian launched his assisted-suicide campaign in 1990, allowing an Alzheimer's patient to kill herself using a machine he devised that enabled her to trigger a lethal drug injection.  He was charged with first degree murder in the case, but the charges were later dismissed.  Fiery and unwavering in his cause, Kevorkian made a point of thumbing his nose at lawmakers, prosecutors and judges, as he accelerated his campaign through the 1990s, using various methods, including carbon monoxide gas.  Often Kevorkian would drop off bodies at hospitals late at night, or leave them in motel rooms where the assisted suicides took place.  He beat Michigan prosecutors four times before his conviction for second degree murder in 1999, after a CBS News program aired a video of him administering lethal drugs to a 52-year-old man suffering from debilitating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease.  Kevorkian was imprisoned for eight years.  As a condition of his parole in 2007, he promised not to assist in any more suicides.  Kevorkian appealed to leave prison early due to his poor health, but said he did not consider himself a candidate for assisted suicide.  Doctor assisted "suicide" essentially became law in Oregon in 1997 and in Washington State in 2009.  The practice of doctors writing prescriptions to help terminally ill patients kill themselves was ultimately upheld as legal by the US Supreme Court.    

My Comments:  Exodus 20:13, "Thou shalt not kill."  There is no scripture in the Bible that says people cannot seek pain relief and there are many forms of pain relief in the world.  God specifically commanded us "not to kill."  A lot of people still would like to dictate to others what they can use for pain medication and what they cannot use.  There are powerful mega-drugs that doctors prescribe to patients who suffer pain, which actually do a lot of harm to the body, but which are widely accepted because they are "prescribed by doctors."  On the other hand, some natural sources, such as marijuana, are agents some feel more comfortable using because it is much much less harmful to the body than many prescribed drugs.  Marijuana is now prescribed too, but because so many young people have abused it, many would say that it is "the devil's brew."  I would never venture to judge someone regarding what type of pain relief they use.  Unless you are a chronic sufferer, you have no idea why people need, must have, pain relief.  The Bible says, "Do you have faith?  Have it to yourself before God.  Happy is he that condemns not himself in the thing which he allows" Romans 14:22.  There doesn't seem to be any doubt why the Spirit spoke expressly that a person should keep their faith to themselves if they allow themselves to receive something that is controversial.  This scripture is definitely not condemnatory to the partaker, but it is obvious that we are not to offend those who are weak in the faith and often judgmental of others.  I find it interesting that this Jack Kevorkian didn't think himself to be a candidate of his own "murder-suicide."