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An advance healthcare directive, also known as living will, personal directive, advance directive, medical directive or advance decision, is a legal document in which a person specifies what actions should be taken for their health if they are no longer able to make decisions for themselves because of illness or incapacity.
Attempts to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide resulted in ballot initiatives and legislation bills within the United States in the last 20 years. For example, Washington voters saw Ballot Initiative 119 in 1991, California placed Proposition 161 on the ballot in 1992, and Michigan included Proposal B in their ballot in 1998.
Passive euthanasia (known as "pulling the plug") is legal under some circumstances in many countries. Active euthanasia, however, is legal or de facto legal in only a handful of countries (for example, Belgium, Canada, and Switzerland), which limit it to specific circumstances and require the approval of counsellors, doctors, or other ...
Assisted suicide in the United States was brought to public attention in the 1990s with the highly publicized case of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Kevorkian assisted over 40 people in dying by suicide in Michigan. [12] His first public assisted suicide was in 1990, of Janet Adkins, a 54-year-old woman diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease in 1989.
In the US, although "about two-thirds of the American public since the 1970s" have supported legalization, surveys of physicians "rarely show as much as half supporting a move". [57] However, physician and other healthcare professional opinions vary widely on the issue of physician-assisted suicide, as shown in the following tables.
According to Lammers, Hitler gave him the task of drafting a euthanasia law, but Hitler decided not to promulgate the law because he was afraid that it would cause an uproar. [4] Since there would be no law formally authorizing the program, doctors, nurses, and public health officials were afraid of criminal liability if they participated in it.
End-of-life care (EOLC) is health care provided in the time leading up to a person's death.End-of-life care can be provided in the hours, days, or months before a person dies and encompasses care and support for a person's mental and emotional needs, physical comfort, spiritual needs, and practical tasks.
Voluntary euthanasia is the purposeful ending of another person's life at their request, in order to relieve them of suffering.Voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) have been the focus of intense debate in the 21st century, surrounding the idea of a right to die.