Issues: Euthanasia |
Keywords Relating to Euthanasia |
|
Euthanasia |
The word comes from two Greek words meaning 'Good death'. It usually refers to mercy killing, or giving a peaceful, premature death to someone. |
|
Assisted Suicide |
Providing a seriously ill person with the means to commit suicide. |
|
Voluntary Euthanasia |
The Situation where someone dying in pain asks a doctor to end his/her life painlessly. |
| Non-voluntary Euthanasia | Ending someone's life painlessly when they are unable to ask but you have a good reason to think they would want you to do so. |
|
Passive Euthanasia |
When the decision is made to give no more life saving medical intervention to a patient (it could be not resuscitating a patient, not feeding them, turning off a life support machine etc). |
|
Active Euthanasia |
When medical staff take a deliberate action to end the life of the patient. |
| Hospice | A place dedicated to the care of terminally ill patients. |
| EXIT | The Voluntary Euthanasia Society within the UK which believes that everyone should have the right to die when and how they want. |
| Terminal illness | When a person is suffering from an illness that cannot be cured and will end in death. |
| Doctrine of Double Effect | The idea that if a person takes an action to attain an effect knowing that it will produce another, they cannot be blamed for the second effect occurring. Therefore if a doctor has to prescribed a pain killing drug to stop the pain of an advanced cancer patient but the pain killers have another effect of killing the patient - that's ok because the aim is to relieve the pain not kill the patient. |
 |
Introduction |