What is assisted 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, which involves a doctor “knowingly and intentionally providing a person with the knowledge or means or both required to commit suicide, including counselling about lethal doses of drugs, prescribing such lethal doses or supplying the drugs”.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia are sometimes combined under the umbrella term “assisted dying”, an example of a trend by advocates to replace the word “suicide” with “death” or ideally, “dying”. Other euphemisms in common use are “physician-assisted dying”, “physician-assisted death”. Physician-assisted suicide is often confused with euthanasia (sometimes called “mercy killing”). In cases of euthanasia the physician administers the means of death, usually a lethal drug. In physician-assisted suicide the patient self-administers the means of death.

Assisted suicide is prohibited by common law or criminal statute in all US states; medical aid in dying is specifically authorised in five US states: Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana and California. The Oregon, Washington, Vermont and California laws expressly say that “actions taken in accordance with (the Act) shall not, for any purpose, constitute suicide, assisted suicide, mercy killing or homicide, under the law”.

This distinguishes the legal act of medical aid in dying from the act of assisting in a suicide. Countries other than the US that allow physicians to physically assist in the death of patients include Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland. — Online.