Fasting for the Right to Die

Dragged, literally, to jail for helping people kill themselves, Jack Kevorkian goes on a hunger strike

In the middle of his war against the nation's traditional views on suicide, Jack Kevorkian -- Dr. Death -- has been taken prisoner. The 65-year-old retired pathologist was hauled into a Detroit courtroom last Friday to face charges of violating a new Michigan law that makes assisting suicides a crime. He went limp rather than post bond and had to be dragged out by the arms, his legs scraping the floor. "I won't eat," he vowed. Like a one-man Greek chorus, his lawyer intoned, "We are now beginning the death watch."

The irony had to be intentional. Kevorkian, who argues that...

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