active euthanasia

active euthanasia The active acceleration of a terminally ill patient’s death by use of drugs or other means. Currently, active euthanasia is openly practiced in the Netherlands and in the US state of Oregon. The patient’s request to the physician must be voluntary, explicit, and carefully considered, and it must be made repeatedly. Moreover, the patient’s suffering must be unbearable and without any prospect of improvement. Suicide for other reasons, whether irrational or rational, is not active euthanasia. The forced killing of an ill or disabled person, as has occurred in eugenics programs, is also not active euthanasia. And although medications administered for pain relief may hasten death, aggressive pain relief is a normal medical decision in terminal care, not in active euthanasia. See also assisted suicide; eugenics; euthanasia.