MERCY KILL

Mercy Killing, also known as euthanasia, ending the life of an incurably ill person to save the individual from further pain and suffering. It can involve the withdrawal of extraordinary means of supporting life, such as high-technology equipment or intravenous feeding, or the active administration of a drug to induce death. To various degrees, the practice is legally approved in many states and countries.


Euthanasia, practice of mercifully ending a person’s life in order to release the person from an incurable disease, intolerable suffering, or undignified death. The word euthanasia derives from the Greek for “good death” and originally referred to intentional mercy killing. When medical advances made prolonging the lives of dying or comatose patients possible, the term euthanasia was also applied to a lack of action to prevent death.


Active euthanasia involves painlessly putting individuals to death for merciful reasons, as when a doctor administers a lethal dose of medication to a patient. Passive euthanasia involves not doing something to prevent death, as when doctors refrain from using an artificial respirator to keep alive a terminally ill patient.

In voluntary euthanasia, a person asks to die (by either active or passive euthanasia). Nonvoluntary euthanasia refers to ending the life of a person who is not mentally competent to make an informed request to die, such as a comatose patient.

Euthanasia differs from assisted suicide, in which a patient voluntarily brings about his or her own death with the assistance of another person, typically a physician. In this case, the act is a suicide (intentional self-inflicted death), because the patient actually causes his or her own death.


Euthanasia has been accepted in some forms by various groups or societies throughout history. In ancient Greece and Rome helping others die or putting them to death was considered permissible in some situations. For example, in the Greek city of Sparta newborns with severe birth defects were put to death. Voluntary euthanasia for the elderly was an approved custom in several ancient societies. However, as Christianity developed and grew powerful in the West, euthanasia became morally and ethically abhorrent and was viewed as a violation of God’s gift of life. Today most branches of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam condemn active euthanasia, although some permit restricted forms of passive euthanasia.

Following traditional religious principles, Western laws have generally treated the act of assisting someone in dying as a form of punishable homicide (unlawful killing). However, in modern times laws have become more secular. Those who wish to legalize euthanasia have argued that, under principles of individual liberty (such as those expressed in the Constitution of the United States), individuals have a legal right to die as they choose. Most countries (including the United States), however, have not fully adopted this position and retain restrictions on euthanasia.

The first organizations to promote the legalization of voluntary euthanasia in the United States and Great Britain formed in the 1930s. For several decades these organizations remained small and had little impact. However, in the late 1970s the pro-euthanasia movement gained significant momentum after a highly publicized incident in the United States. In 1975 a 21-year-old woman named Karen Ann Quinlan suffered a respiratory arrest that resulted in severe and irreversible brain damage and left her in a coma. Several months later, after doctors informed them that their daughter’s recovery was extremely unlikely, Quinlan’s parents requested that artificial means of life support be removed. The hospital refused this request.

After a lengthy legal battle, in 1976 the Quinlans obtained a court order allowing them to remove the artificial respirator that was thought to be keeping their daughter alive. The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the Quinlans could disconnect the device so that the patient could “die with dignity.” This decision spawned increased discussion of the scope of patients’ rights to control their death. (Although the respirator was removed in 1976, Quinlan began to breathe on her own. She lived until 1985 without ever regaining consciousness.)

In the early 1990s the decision of Nancy B. v. Hotel-Dieu de Quebec in Canada played a similar role in promoting public awareness of the issues surrounding euthanasia. In this case, a young woman paralyzed as a result of the rare disease known as Guillain-Barré syndrome wished to have the artificial breathing mechanism that kept her alive disconnected. Concluding that such refusal of treatment was permissible, in January 1992 a Québec superior court judge authorized the woman’s physician to remove the respirator.

As laws have evolved from their traditional religious underpinnings, certain forms of euthanasia have been legally accepted. In general, laws attempt to draw a line between passive euthanasia (generally associated with allowing a person to die) and active euthanasia (generally associated with killing a person). While laws commonly permit passive euthanasia, active euthanasia is typically prohibited


Assisted Suicide, a person’s voluntary suicide with help from another individual. A suicide is an intentional, self-caused death. Individuals who elect to kill themselves with the assistance of another person typically have an incurable illness or are experiencing extreme physical suffering.

The term assisted suicide may also refer to the act of providing an individual with the means to commit suicide, knowing that the recipient plans to use these means to end his or her own life. If a doctor provides medications or other means of committing suicide with the understanding that a patient may intentionally use them to end his or her own life, this action is referred to as physician-assisted suicide. The remainder of this article deals primarily with physician-assisted suicide.