Euthanasia refers to the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable disease or condition. It aims to prevent prolonged suffering and can be voluntary, non-voluntary, or involuntary. It is currently legal in some locations like the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Oregon, Washington, and Montana under certain conditions like being terminally ill with less than six months to live. While it remains controversial, proponents argue that as humans we should be able to choose how we die if incurably ill just as we can choose how to live.

2. Euthanasia:
• The painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful
disease or in an irreversible coma.
• Mercy killing to prevent a prolonged and painful death.
• From the Greek “ευθανασία” meaning “good death”.
• It is also known as:
- Physician Assisted Suicide
- Physician Aid in Dying
- Mercy Killing
- Imposed Death
It is currently illegal in most locations.

3. Types of Euthanasia:
• Voluntary- The person wants to die and says so. This includes:
- refusing medical treatment
- asking for medical treatment to be
stopped
- asking for life support to be switched off
- refusing to eat
• Non-Voluntary- The person cannot make a decision or cannot make
their wishes known. This includes:
- coma patients
- child and infant patients
- severely brain damaged patients
- senile patients

4. Types of Euthanasia:
• Involuntary- The person wants to live but is killed anyway. This includes:
- patient being refused a life sustaining treatment
- drugs being too costly
- a limited supply of organs for a transplant
- patient being on a long waiting list
• Active- the medical professionals, or another person, deliberately do
something that causes the patient to die.
• Passive- the patient dies because the medical professionals either don't do
something necessary to keep the patient alive, or when they stop doing
something that is keeping the patient alive. This includes:
- switching off life-support machines
- disconnecting the feeding tube
- not carrying out a life-extending operation
- not giving the patient life-extending drugs

5. Importance of Euthanasia:
• “As human beings, we are endowed with the freedom of
choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon
the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it
ourselves. It is our responsibility.” - Arnold J. Toynbee
• If we are free to make the our own choices of how to live,
we should also be able to make our own choices of how to
die. The power belongs to the patient.
• Debilitating illnesses, such as cancer, are currently on the
rise. The more people diagnosed with these illnesses
directly correlates to the number of people faced with the
euthanasia issue.

6. Legal Euthanasia outside of the US:
Assisted suicide is currently legal in the
Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
Legal Euthanasia within the US:
Assisted suicide is currently legal in the states of
Oregon, Washington, and Montana.

7. The Netherlands:
• In 1984 the Dutch Supreme Court ruled voluntary euthanasia was
acceptable, provided doctors followed strict guidelines.
• In the fall 2000, the Dutch parliament voted to formally legalize the
practice, making the Netherlands the first nation in the world to do
so.
Belgium:
• The Belgian parliament legalized euthanasia in late September
2002.
• It became the second country in the world to legalize euthanasia.

8. Luxembourg:
• The country's parliament passed a bill legalizing euthanasia on 20
February 2008 in the first reading with 30 of 59 votes in favor.
• On 19 March 2009, the bill passed the second reading, making
Luxembourg the third European Union country, after the
Netherlands and Belgium, to decriminalize euthanasia.
• Terminally ill people will be able to have their lives ended after
receiving the approval of two doctors and a panel of experts.
Oregon:
• This is the first state in the United States to legalize euthanasia. In
1994, voters passed the Death with Dignity Act (DWDA) with a
majority vote. This became effective in 1998.

9. Oregon (cont.):
• Conditions:
- The person must be terminally ill.
- The person must have six months or less to live.
- The person must make two oral requests for assistance in
dying.
- The person must make one written request for assistance in
dying.
- The person must convince two physicians that he or she is
sincere and not acting on a whim, and that the
decision is voluntary.
- The person must not have been influenced by depression.
- The person must be informed of "the feasible alternatives,"
including, but not limited to, comfort care, hospice
care, and pain control.
- The person must wait for 15 days.

10. Washington:
• In 2008, the electorate of the state of Washington
voted in favor of Intiative 1000 which made assisted
suicide legal in the state through the Death with
Dignity Act.
Montana:
• On December 5, 2008, state District Court judge
Dorothy McCarter ruled in favor of a terminally ill
resident who had filed a lawsuit with the assistance of
Compassion and Choices, a patient rights group.
• The ruling states that competent, terminally ill patients
have the right to self-administer lethal doses of
medication as prescribed by a physician.

11. Any
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