81 ANNALS EDITORIAL It is paradoxical to talk about euthanasia when we are hearing people dying all over the world without willing to die such as in Iraq, Ukraine, Egypt, Palestine and so on. Life is full of contradictions, perplexing complexities, and infinite possibilities. If you ask anyone if he or she wants to die most likely you will get an answer 'no'. On the other hand, we hear every da...

Absolute prohibitions of physician assistance in suicide have long been canonical in medical ethics, but a powerful reformation of views on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide is now underway in several countries. The law on physician-assisted suicide in the state of Oregon, social approval of euthanasia in the Netherlands, and the (in principle) legality of active euthanasia in Japan are...

In considering the second version of the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) opted for a position of ‘neutrality’,1 changing its earlier opposition to physician assisted suicide (PAS) and voluntary euthanasia (VE).2 ‘Neutrality’ towards this second version of the bill, however, was controversial, being perceived as a change to indifference or tacit ...

Many people hold that there is an important moral distinction between passive euthanasia and active euthanasia. Thus, while the AMA maintains that people have a right "to die with dignity," so that it is morally permissible for a doctor to allow someone to die if that person wants to and is suffering from an incurable illness causing pain that cannot be sufficiently alleviated, the AMA is unwil...

This study deals with frequency and form of euthanasia in dialysis patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) within the period from 2000 to 2006. Of total number of 2700 patients on dialysis we examined n = 753 of them. Examinees with the Balkan Endemic Nephropathy (BEN) (n = 348) were in the first group, and the Control group was formed of patients with other di...

It is widely accepted in clinical ethics that removing a patient from a ventilator at the patient's request is ethically permissible. This constitutes voluntary passive euthanasia. However, voluntary active euthanasia, such as giving a patient a lethal overdose with the intention of ending that patient's life, is ethically proscribed, as is assisted suicide, such as providing a patient with let...

Fears of abandonment and isolation in an institution have increased the public demand for euthanasia and assisted suicide. To quell this movement, Catholic healthcare providers must provide a caring community where patients and care givers enable each other to confront the fear of death and find support in living with human limitation. To begin to address the social and political dimensions of ...

Is it worse to kill someone than to let someone die? It seems obvious to common sense that it is worse. We allow people to die, for example, when we fail to contribute money to famine-relief efforts; but even if we feel somewhat guilty, we do not consider ourselves murderers. Nor do we feel like accessories to murder when we fail to give blood, sign an organ-donor card, or do any of the other t...

Several cases which have been considered by the courts in recent years have highlighted the legal dilemmas facing doctors whose decisions result in the ending of a patient's life. This paper considers the case of Dr Cox, who was convicted of attempting to murder one of his patients, and explores the roles of motive, diminished responsibility and consent in cases of "mercy killing". The Cox deci...