Historians of medical ethics have found that active euthanasia, in the sense of intentionally hastening the death of terminally-ill patients, was considered unacceptable in the Christian West before the 1870s. This paper presents a range of early modern texts on the issue which reflect a learned awareness of practices designed to shorten the lives of dying patients which were widely accepted am...

The Netherlands, Oregon and Switzerland are the only areas in the world where assistance in dying has legally been practised in recent years. This article provides a detailed comparison of the history of the origins, legislation, monitoring systems and the extent of assistance in dying in these three places. It shows that the actual practice in Switzerland which, unlike Oregon, also allows assi...

The working party on euthanasia set up by the British Medical Association produced its report in 1988 (1). The first of its terms of reference was 'to examine the ethical problems relating to euthanasia, terminal illness, and suicide' and as far as active voluntary euthanasia (AVE) is concerned it failed conspicuously to do its job. The purpose of this article is not to restate the case for AVE...

This article presents the first results of a study of the decisions made by health professionals in South Australia concerning the management of death, dying, and euthanasia, and focuses on the findings concerning the attitudes and practices of medical practitioners. Mail-back, self-administered questionnaires were posted in August 1991 to a ten per cent sample of 494 medical practitioners in S...

The Ethics Task Force of the EAPC has done a significant job in forwarding the discussion of the relationship between palliative care and euthanasia, as the wealth of international commentary on the document surely illustrates. The position paper is commendably succinct and, in some respects, unambiguous in the views defended. Notably, the document abjures discussion of anything other than volu...

Feminisation of the medical profession To the Editor: The recent editorial lamenting the failure of the profession to have become ‘gender neutral’ mentioned, but did not quantify, the lower productivity of female doctors.1 Six years ago, the independent hospitals in Britain organised a conference to discuss the long National Health Service waiting lists. One speaker, a Dr David Whitaker, said, ...

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...

The distinction between 'kill' and 'help to die' is argued by analogy with the distinction between 'rape' and 'make love to'. The difference is the consent of the receiver of the act, therefore 'kill' is the wrong word for an act of active voluntary euthanasia. The argument that doctors must not be allowed by law to perform active voluntary euthanasia because this would recognise an infringemen...

The global euthanasia debate by health care professionals has raised important ethical issues concerning the professional duties and responsibilities of nurses caring for terminal patients. The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of acutely ill patients towards the practice of euthanasia in Hong Kong. A modified form of the 23-item Questionnaire for General Household Survey scale...

Background: Euthanasia is made up of two words i.e. eu, means “good” and thanatos “death,” which basically derived from Greek word early its signified a or “easy” death. defined as administering lethal agent by clinician to patient relieve him/her intolerable incurable suffering. Two types are practicing in India i.e., “active” “passive.” Active euthanasia deliberately work such way end patient...