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Assisted suicide, also known as physician-assisted suicide (PAS), describes the process by which a person, with the help of others, takes drugs to end their life. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] This medical practice is an end-of-life measure for a person suffering a painful , terminal illness . [ 3 ]
The first significant drive to legalize assisted suicide in the United States arose in the early twentieth century. In a 2004 article in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Brown University historian Jacob M. Appel documented extensive political debate over legislation to legalize physician-assisted death in Iowa and Ohio in 1906.
However, in these scenarios, support falls by roughly 10-15% showing that support for euthanasia is higher than support for physician-assisted suicide among the general population. This is an interesting discrepancy as there are no states in which voluntary euthanasia is legal, but at least 5 in which physician-assisted suicide is legal.
The law was signed in by California governor Jerry Brown in October 2015, making California the fifth state to allow physicians to prescribe drugs to end the life of a terminally ill patient, [2] often referred to as physician-assisted suicide.
The Dutch law, however, does not use the term 'euthanasia' but includes the concept under the broader definition of "assisted suicide and termination of life on request". [5] Euthanasia is categorised in different ways, which include voluntary, non-voluntary, and involuntary. [6]
Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243 (2006), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court which ruled that the United States Attorney General cannot enforce the federal Controlled Substances Act against physicians who prescribed drugs, in compliance with Oregon state law, to terminally ill patients seeking to end their lives, commonly referred to as assisted suicide. [1]
The law was later voided by the federal Euthanasia Laws Act 1997, [163] which is a federal law that was in effect until 13 December 2022 [164] and prevented parliaments of territories (Specifically the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory and Norfolk Island) from legalising euthanasia or assisted dying.
Assisted suicide, the practice of helping or assisting another person to end their life. Euthanasia , the practice of intentionally ending a life to relieve pain and suffering. Palliative sedation may in some cases accelerate the death of the patient, so sometimes it is also considered an assisted death.