The primary goal of medical treatment is to benefit the patient by restoring or maintaining the patient’s health as far as possible, maximising benefit and

A machine that helps a patient breathe. Sometimes it is used temporarily until a person can breathe on his or her own; other times it

Hastening the death of a person by ceasing or altering some form of support, which otherwise would help the patient to live longer, and allowing

Terminal sedation usually refers to when a consenting patient is sedated to the point of unconsciousness to relieve otherwise untreatable pain and suffering, and is

Refers to an illness or condition that is incurable and irreversible. When a person is diagnosed as terminally ill, death is expected in a relatively

The intentional taking of one’s own life. In the medical literature, suicide is viewed as an act of despair and connotes an often desperate, violent,

An argument frequently used against changing the law, which states that it is impossible to set secure limits. Under this argument, it is claimed that

A religious concept that holds that life is a gift from God and so can only be ended by God.

Refers to the rules and principles generally accepted as relevant in the moral analysis of ethical issues in medicine. In health care it is difficult

The ending of one’s own life by taking a medication knowingly provided by a physician for that purpose. A physician knowingly supplies the means, which