Definition of Physician-assisted suicide
Physician-assisted suicide: The voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician. Physician-assisted suicide is the practice of providing a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with the primary intention of ending his or her own life.
In the US, only the State of Oregon permits physician-assisted suicide. The Oregon Death with Dignity Act allows terminally ill state residents to receive prescriptions for self-administered lethal medications from their physicians. It does not permit euthanasia, in which a physician or other person directly administers a medication to a patient in order to end his or her life. The Oregon law allows adults with terminal diseases who are likely to die within 6 months to obtain lethal doses of drugs from their doctors. A relatively very small number of people sought lethal drugs under the law and even fewer people who actually used them. Many patients have said that what they want most is a choice about how their lives will end, "a finger on the remote control, as it were."
Physician-assisted suicide has its proponents and its opponents. Among the opponents are some physicians who believe it violates the fundamental tenet of medicine and believe that doctors should not assist in suicides because to do so is incompatible with the doctor's role as a healer. Physician-assisted suicide is often abbreviated PAS. It is called doctor-assisted suicide in the UK.
Last Editorial Review: 6/1/2004
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