ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the issue of whether there should be legal change in the area to permit greater physician involvement in death. It returns to the question of whether the law in respect of end-of-life treatment rests on tenable foundations. The chapter examines the prohibition on doctors on being actively involved in ending life, including how far it is always adhered to in practice. It also addresses the question of when life-saving treatment may be withheld or withdrawn from the incapable patient. Treatment decisions at the end of life are typically aimed at bringing about an easeful death for the patient. The treatments excluded by the judge were radical, painful interventions to prolong life, such as cardio-pulmanory resusciation. Treatment decisions that result in the ending of a patient's life are sometimes characterised as euthanasia. The intentional taking of a patient's life by a doctor, including as a response to the patient's wishes, will amount to the crime of murder.
