How is euthanasia performed

Passive euthanasia : intentionally letting a patient die by withholding artificial life support such as a ventilator or feeding tube. Some ethicists distinguish between withholding life support and withdrawing life support the patient is on life support but then removed from it. Voluntary euthanasia : with the consent of the patient. Involuntary euthanasia : without the consent of the patient, for example, if the patient is unconscious and his or her wishes are unknown..

Self-administered euthanasia : the patient administers the means of death. Other-administered euthanasia : a person other than the patient administers the means of death. Assisted : the patient administers the means of death but with the assistance of another person, such as a physician. There are many possible combinations of the above types, and many types of euthanasia are morally controversial. Some types of euthanasia, such as assisted voluntary forms, are legal in some countries.

Some ethicists think that. A physician provides the patient with a means, such as sufficient medication, for the patient to kill him or herself. Some instances of euthanasia are relatively uncontroversial. Everyone now thinks this kind of euthanasia in the service of a eugenics program was clearly morally wrong.

Advocates of active euthanasia typically argue that killing the patients in question is not worse than letting them die. Advocates of voluntary euthanasia often claim that patients should have the right to do what they want with their own lives.

Back to Health A to Z. For example, it could be considered euthanasia if a doctor deliberately gave a patient with a terminal illness a drug they do not otherwise need, such as an overdose of sedatives or muscle relaxant, with the sole aim of ending their life. Assisted suicide is the act of deliberately assisting another person to kill themselves.

If a relative of a person with a terminal illness obtained strong sedatives, knowing the person intended to use them to kill themselves, the relative may be considered to be assisting suicide.

The different types of euthanasia, some of which may be seen as more or less acceptable depending on your outlook. Euthanasia comes in several different forms, each of which brings a different set of rights and wrongs. In active euthanasia a person directly and deliberately causes the patient's death. In passive euthanasia they don't directly take the patient's life, they just allow them to die.

This is a morally unsatisfactory distinction, since even though a person doesn't 'actively kill' the patient, they are aware that the result of their inaction will be the death of the patient. Active euthanasia is when death is brought about by an act - for example when a person is killed by being given an overdose of pain-killers. Passive euthanasia is when death is brought about by an omission - i. This can be by withdrawing or withholding treatment:. Traditionally, passive euthanasia is thought of as less bad than active euthanasia.

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De praktijk en de toetsingsprocedure euthanasie. De Tijdstroom, Utrecht; Regionale Toetsingscommissie Euthanasie. Jaarverslag [Cited: Levenseindekliniek Jaarverslag [Cited: Oregon physicians' responses to requests for assisted suicide: a qualitative study. J Palliat Med. The practice of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the United States: adherence to proposed safeguards and effects on physicians. Download references. The funding body did not have a role in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript.

Kirsten Evenblij, H. Roeline W. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. KE collected the data and performed data management and statistical analysis. KE prepared the initial draft of this manuscript.

Correspondence to Kirsten Evenblij. This study did not require review by an ethics committee under the Dutch Medical Research Involving Human Subjects Act, since it did not involve imposing any interventions or actions and no patients were involved [ 13 ]. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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