ABSTRACT
Jack Kevorkian helped many people commit suicide, and several physicians have publicly admitted that they have had a role in hastening the death of some of their patients. There has been an enormous amount of controversy about assisted suicide, stimulated in large part by the assistance provided to suicides by Kevorkian. Assisted suicide is no longer a hypothetical possibility—it is a reality. It has been discovered that American physicians have been assisting patients to die for many years without publicity. In the United States, there has been significant support for banning or making illegal controversial actions such as assisted suicide, gambling, prostitution, abortion, and recreational drug use. A perusal of the medical literature on attempted suicide illustrates the varied ways in which people injure themselves seriously as a result of unsuccessful attempts to kill themselves. Some potential suicides no longer have the physical ability to kill themselves.
