Euthanasia

Euthanasia is the practice of assisting the death of a patient suffering from a painful disease, or who is in a persistent vegetative state. It is ethically controversial, and outlawed in most places (Switzerland, Belgium, Albania and the Netherlands are exceptions). Opponents of euthanasia say that it is murder, although most definitions of murder note that it is unlawful killing, and if euthanasia were legal, it would not be unlawful. The term euthanasia covers a variety of different situations, which have different moral issues attached to them.

Consensuality

The term euthanasia covers both voluntary and involuntary death. In the former, a person elects or specifies conditions for medically-assisted death, often in the form of a living will. The moral issues that accompany voluntary euthanasia are whether or not assisting suicide compromises the professional ethics of doctors and other health providers. Critics will often point to the Hippocratic Oath, and also point to the problem of coercion - that people may be pressured, or at least feel pressued, into giving consent in order to save the costs of healthcare, or to free up hospital beds and resources for others.