Assisting suicide

Assisted suicide is suicide committed with the aid of another person, sometimes a physician. The term is often used interchangeably with physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which involves a doctor "knowingly and intentionally providing a person with the knowledge or means or both required to commit suicide, including counseling about lethal doses of drugs, prescribing such lethal doses or supplying the drugs."

Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Colombia, and Switzerland allow physicians to physically assist in the death of patients. In the United States, seven states allow medical aid in dying, a legal practice in which a person who has been diagnosed as terminally ill with 6 months or less to live can request a lethal dose of a medication to self-administer in order to end their life. This option is designated a legal form of assisted suicide by distinct state laws. Non-medical assisted suicide is unlawful by common law or criminal statute in the vast majority of the United States (with some states having no definitive law or statute).

Physician-assisted suicide is often confused with euthanasia. In cases of euthanasia the physician administers the means of death, usually a lethal drug. In physician-assisted suicide, it is required that a person of sound mind voluntarily expresses his or her wish to die and requests a dose of medication that will end his or her life. The distinguishing aspect is that physician-assisted suicide requires the patient to self-administer the medication.

One argument for medical aid in dying is that it reduces prolonged suffering in those with terminal illnesses. When death is imminent (half a year or less) patients can choose to have aid in dying as a medical option to shorten an unbearable dying process. Pain is mostly not reported as the primary motivation for seeking physician aid in dying in the United States; the three most frequently mentioned end‐of‐life concerns reported by Oregon residents who took advantage of the Death With Dignity Act in 2015 were: decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable (96.2%), loss of autonomy (92.4%), and loss of dignity (78.4%).

A study of hospice nurses and social workers in Oregon reported that symptoms of pain, depression, anxiety, extreme air hunger and fear of the process of dying were more pronounced among hospice patients who did not request aid-in-dying medication.

A Journal of Palliative Medicine report on patterns of hospice use noted that Oregon was in both the highest quartile of hospice use and the lowest quartile of potentially concerning patterns of hospice use. A similar trend was found in Vermont, where AiD was authorized in 2013.

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