Lethal aid--physician or lawyer-assisted suicide?

Legal/legislative issues in euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

Ruling on physician-assisted suicide near top of agenda at US Supreme Court.

THE US SUPREME COURT will soon rule on whether Americans have a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide. Lawyer Karen Capen says Canadian physicians should keep an eye on the ruling because Canada and the US have similar standards of medical practice and ethical principles. Any solution remains difficult because the gap between supporters and opponents of physician-assisted suicide i...

Physician-assisted Dying and the Slippery Slope: the Challenge of Empirical Evidence

Direct physician-assisted dying, typically called physicianassisted suicide by opponents and aid in dying by proponents, is of increasing salience for at least two reasons: legal evolution and changing demographics. As of this writing, physician-assisted dying has been legal in Oregon for a decade. Known as Measure 16 at the ballot box, the Death with Dignity Act (ODDA, or, in Oregon, DWDA) pas...

Medical concerns about physician-assisted suicide.

The November 8, 1994 passage of Oregon's Measure 16, which permits physicians to comply with the request of a competent adult patient with less than six months to live for a prescription for lethal drugs, has intensified the debate over the legalization of physicianassisted suicide following the defeats of similar initiatives in Washington' and California.2 Subsequent legal challenge to Measure...

Voluntary Active Euthanasia: The Debate

Voluntary active euthanasia refers to a clearly competent patient making a voluntary and persistent request for aid in dying (Brock 1999; Ogubanjo & Knapp van Bogaert 2008). In this case, the individual or a person acting on that individual’s behalf (physician or lay person, depending on the law of the country) takes active steps to hasten death (LaFollette, 1997). That active step can be eithe...