Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. Suicide with the help of another person; especially suicide of a terminally ill person with the help of a physician; euthanasia.
WordNet
n. suicide of a terminally ill person that involves an assistant who serves to make dying as painless and dignified as possible
Wikipedia
Assisted suicide is suicide committed with the aid of another person, sometimes a physician. The term is often used interchangeably with physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which involves a doctor "knowingly and intentionally providing a person with the knowledge or means or both required to commit suicide, including counseling 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", "aid in dying", "death with dignity", "right to die", "compassionate death", "compassionate dying", "end-of-life choice", and "medical assistance at the end of life".
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 (PAS) the patient self-administers the means of death.
According to several studies, more than half of the oncologists polled have received requests from a patient wanting to end their life.
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Physicians are allowed to prescribe lethal medications only in jurisdictions where it is legal, regardless of what the patient wants or the prognosis for their disease.
Discussion of assisted suicide centers on legal, social, ethical, moral and religious issues related to suicide and murder.
Usage examples of "assisted suicide".
The husband of the thirty-year-old cancer victim, though present during the assisted suicide, subsequently filed a civil suit seeking damages from Maddoc when an autopsy discovered that his wife had been misdiagnosed, that she didn't have cancer, and that her condition had been curable.
What had kept Lincoln Rhyme sane since his accident - what had stopped him from finding some Jack Kevorkian to help with assisted suicide - were mental challenges like this.
What had kept Lincoln Rhyme sane since his accident - what had stopped him from finding some Jack Kevorkian to help with assisted suicide were mental challenges like this.