Category: assisted suicide

Polling sometimes suggests that the UK public is in favor of ‘assisted dying.’ This is an illusion, caused in many cases by people not knowing what ‘assisted dying is.’ A recent poll showed that only 42% of the public understood what ‘assisted dying’ refers to, with 10% thinking it meant hospice-type care and 42% believing it meant stopping treatment. There is no legal or ethical mandate that a terminally ill person must be kept alive “at all costs.” There is, however, a major difference between withdrawing medical treatment and thereby allowing a patient to die of his or her own medical condition and intentionally ending a patient’s life. What Is Euthanasia? Euthanasia (as well as assisted suicide) is most basically understood as the lethal dose of drugs to deliberately end…