ABSTRACT
Voluntary euthanasia and medically assisted suicide can be distinguished in terms of the causal roles performed by the doctor and the patient. In voluntary euthanasia, the doctor deliberately or intentionally ends the patient's life, at the patient's request; in assisted suicide, the patient deliberately or intentionally ends her life, with the purposeful assistance of her doctor. It is often assumed that a morally relevant and practically workable distinction can be drawn between cases of the intentional termination of life, on the one hand, and the provision of potentially life-shortening palliative care and the withdrawal and withholding of life-sustaining treatment, on the other. For many patients, death is no longer the natural event it once was. Rather, it is very often the result of a deliberate medical end-of-life decision. The Australian study demonstrates that large numbers of Australian doctors are intentionally ending the lives of patients.
