euthanasia

118) At that time, Kamisar primarily feared extension of PAD to nonvoluntary euthanasia (for patients who were not competent to make their own medical decisions) and to involuntary euthanasia (contrary to a competent patient's wishes or to the wishes of a surrogate representing a mentally incompetent patient).

But he ignores questions of whether the law itself should be changed to uphold the right of a competent patient to obtain active euthanasia, and whether respect for human dignity' permits nonvoluntary euthanasia, in or out of wartime.

The letters evaded the question of whether nonvoluntary euthanasia (now turned into an oxymoron) actually took place.

In order to protect themselves from involuntary or nonvoluntary euthanasia, readers should go to www.

Nonvoluntary euthanasia occurs when the person whose life is terminated is not capable of understanding the choice between life and death; in this sense, she is incompetent.

Hentoff objected to my views regarding both voluntary and nonvoluntary euthanasia, but here I am concerned only with his opposition to voluntary euthanasia.

Buried at the end of a long footnote is a sentence that redefines voluntary euthanasia to encompass nonvoluntary euthanasia performed with proper authorization: "Finally," says the court, "we should make it clear that a decision of a duly appointed surrogate decision maker is for all legal purposes the decision of the patient himself.

Daniel Callahan has reported that in the Netherlands, where physician-assisted suicide has been practiced for a number of years, "there are a substantial number of cases of nonvoluntary euthanasia, that is, euthanasia undertaken without the explicit permission of the person being killed.

In a portion of its opinion not cited by Matsunaga, it had also endorsed nonvoluntary euthanasia, saying that those mentally incapable of deciding for themselves should be killed at the direction of their guardians or other surrogates, just as, under current law, guardians can direct the cutoff of life-sustaining treatment for such patients.

That this would inevitably lead to nonvoluntary euthanasia was denied in that brazen, Clintonian fashion that we all have become accustomed to.