What Is Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide?

Euthanasia is the act of a physician or other third party ending a patient's life in response to severe, persistent and untreatable pain and suffering. It is sometimes referred to as assisted suicide, physician-assisted death, physician-assisted suicide, mercy killing, and other variations; however, assisted suicide and euthanasia have differences.

Assisted suicide is intentionally and knowingly providing the means for another to commit suicide. For example, providing a prescription medication to someone with the knowledge that they intend to use it for the purpose of suicide.

Euthanasia involves a person, such as a physician, knowingly acting to cause the death of a person suffering from severe and incurable pain. For example, a physician giving injections of drugs to induce coma and then stop the heart.

There are two primary classifications of euthanasia.

Voluntary euthanasia is not legal in most parts of the world. The Netherlands and Belgium are currently the only countries who allow the practice. Involuntary euthanasia is not legal anywhere.

Physician-assisted suicide is currently legal in the United States in several states, including Oregon and Washington, and in a handful of other countries.

Physician-assisted suicide is only done when a patient has a terminal diagnosis and is suffering, with little or no relief. In such cases, a patient may wish to control when and how they die. A key part of physician-assisted suicide involves how the suicide is enacted: The patient must be the one to take the medication. It is illegal for a friend, family member, physician or anyone else to administer the medication; to do so crosses the legal line into the definition of euthanasia.

Sometimes called terminal sedation, palliative sedation is the progressive use of sedatives to achieve a desirable level of comfortpatients who are terminally ill and experiencing unrelievedsuffering.Death usually follows shortly after a patient becomes sedated.

Palliative sedation is neither euthanasia nor is itphysician-assisted suicide as the intent is not to cause death. Though death may occur, it is often unclear whether the death occurred because of the sedation or the terminal illness itself.

Palliative sedation requires the consent of the patient. If a patient is unable to make decisions for himself or herself, the decision falls to the patient's designated health care decision maker. The patient is unable to deliver the correct dosage of a palliative sedative, which is usually given as a suppository or an infusion. Because the sedation is fast-acting, the sedatives can be only given by a physician, nurse or another of the patient's primary caregivers.

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What Is Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide?

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