In Hungary, which has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world, physician assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia are punishable criminal acts. Attitudes towards self destruction and assisted suicide are, however, very controversial. We investigated the attitudes of medical students, nurses and social science students in Hungary towards PAS, using a twelve item scale: the total number of ...

IMPORTANCE The increasing legalization of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide worldwide makes it important to understand related attitudes and practices. OBJECTIVE To review the legal status of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide and the available data on attitudes and practices. EVIDENCE REVIEW Polling data and published surveys of the public and physicians, official state and ...

Oregon became the first state in the nation to legalize assisted suicide. Passage of Proposition 16 was a milestone in the campaign to make assisted suicide a legal option. The culmination of years of effort, the Oregon vote followed on the heels of failed referenda in California and Washington, and other unsuccessful attempts to enact state laws guaranteeing the right to suicide assistance. In...

This paper offers a brief review of the legal status of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in the United States. In the mid-1990s, it appeared that the Supreme Court might recognize a fundamental right to physician-assisted suicide. But in 1997, the Court rejected constitutional challenges to laws banning assisted suicide. Since then, the battle over assisted suicide has largely shifted ...

BACKGROUND The practices of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide remain controversial. OBJECTIVE To achieve better understanding of attitudes and practices regarding euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the context of end-of-life care. DESIGN Cohort study. SETTING United States. PARTICIPANTS 3299 oncologists who are members of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. ME...

BACKGROUND In Switzerland, if certain conditions are met, assisted suicide is not prosecuted. International debate suggests that requests for hasten death are often altered by the provision of palliative care. Aims of the study were to explore patients' reasons for choice of assisted suicide and family perceptions of the interactions with health care professionals. PATIENTS AND METHODS This i...

Euthanasia and assisted suicide involve taking deliberate action to end or assist in ending the life of another person on compassionate grounds. There is considerable disagreement about the acceptability of these acts and about whether they are ethically distinct from decisions to forgo life-sustaining treatment. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are punishable offences under Canadian criminal la...