Assisted Suicide
Assisted suicide is where the patient actively takes the last step in their death. The term "assisted suicide" is contrasted with "active euthanasia" when the difference between providing the means and actively administering lethal medicine is considered important, though in practice, the distinction can appear very hard to draw. For example, Swiss law on assisted suicide allows assisted suicide, while all forms of active euthanasia (like lethal injection) remain prohibited.
Some jurisdictions declare that a person dying as a result of physician assisted suicide does not commit suicide. This ensures that terminally ill people choosing assisted suicide options do not have reduced insurance claims compared to people dying in "natural" way. For example, the Oregon Death with Dignity Act defines that "... participation under the Act is not suicide, so should not affect insurance benefits by that definition."
Read more about this topic: Voluntary Euthanasia
Famous quotes containing the words assisted and/or suicide:
“To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Would Hamlet have felt the delicious fascination of suicide if he hadn’t had an audience, and lines to speak?”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)