Assisted suicide is the provision by a doctor, consciously and legally, to a patient who has competently requested it, of the means for that patient to end his or her own life. Large amounts of lethal drugs such as barbiturates and carbon monoxide are inhaled to painlessly cause death (Barry, 2004). Usually a physician, family member, or a friend fulfills someone s request for help in dying. Usually it involves a terminally ill patient who wishes to die but is not capable of self-destruction. He/she may need a doctor to give a lethal injection or prescription or a family member to help him arrange another means of suicide (Daniel, 2001). In the case of assisted suicide, the patient, while receiving help, alone performs the final, death-inducing act.
The term assisted suicide may also refer to the act of providing an individual with the means to commit suicide, knowing that the recipient plans to use these means to end his or her own life. If a doctor provides medications or other means of committing suicide with the understanding that a patient may intentionally use them to end his or her own life, this action is referred to as physician-assisted suicide. The remainder of this article deals primarily with physician-assisted suicide.
Some people who face acute illness wish to refuse treatments offered by doctors, even if refusing such treatment may cause them to die (Barry, 2003). Like people who commit suicide, patients who refuse treatment often intend to end their lives because of their grim prospects for a healthy recovery. On the other hand, many people who desire assisted suicide seek relief from their suffering and do not seek death as an end in itself. Therefore, distinguishing a suicide from a refusal of treatment merely by the patient’s intention can be difficult......
