Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: ongoing controversies.

When, back in 2002, Chao et al1 reviewed the topic of euthanasia, there was a trend toward legalising it in a few countries. The Netherlands had just passed a bill in April 2001 to legalise the practice of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and Belgium was in the process of doing so. Before the bill, Dutch physicians had practised euthanasia and PAS under a set of guidelines agreed by the Royal Dutch Medical Association and the Dutch Ministry of Justice in 1990. The Northern Territory of Australia had, in May 1995, passed the Rights of the Terminally III Act. It was overturned by the Federal Senate in 1997, shortly after the first death by euthanasia under the Act. In the US, Oregon first passed the Oregon Death and Dignity Act (ODDA) as a ballot initiative in 1994. When it became State Law in October 1997, the federal government took the case to the Supreme Court.1