Analysis of the debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide This essay leaves no stone unturned in its analysis of the debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide. Very thorough definitions are provided for both concepts, with examples that clarify rather than obscure the reader's understanding. Euthanasia is the intentional causing or hastening of death in a person with a medical condition judged to be serious. The patient may be (a) alert and (b) aware and (c) competent to make his or her own decisions and (d) able to communicate or the patient may have (a) decreased alertness (due to encephalopathy or coma) , (b) impaired awareness (retardation, dementia, vegetative state) and (c) being unable to make one's own decisions or (d) being unable to communicate due to aphasia or inability to speak. Euthanasia is voluntary, when an alert, aware, competent patient agrees to it being performed and euthanasia is involuntary when it is performed on a patient without the clear understanding and consent of the patient. Euthanasia can be an obvious and clear act, recognized as such by both medical personnel and the patient, or it can be an action or series of actions proposed as "standard" medical treatment. An example of an overt act is when a patient is given a lethal intravenous dose of potassium or insulin or a fatal oral dose of sedatives. However, the patient may be given gradually increasing doses of morphine or other narcotics for sedation or analgesia, in the knowledge that morphine will hasten death. If the drug is used primarily to treat severe pain that does not respond to other analgesics, a painful terminal condition (such as advanced, widespread cancer), it may... half of the article... also, the use of Strong narcotics, which were once limited to pain management, are becoming accepted for a variety of indications such as anxiety, shortness of breath and to suppress the feeling of hunger when stopping a meal. In this way, palliative care is rapidly becoming a euphemism for euthanasia. WORKS CITED: 1. The multi-society task force on developing countries. Medical aspects of the persistent vegetative state. N Engl J Med 1994; 330:1499-508.2. Andrews K, Murphy L, Munday R, Littlewood C. Misdiagnosis of the vegetative state: a retrospective study in a rehabilitation unit. Brit Med J 1996; 313:13-16.3. Childs NL, Mercer WN. Brief report: late improvement of consciousness after post-traumatic vegetative state. N Engl J Med 1996;334:24-25. (report of a 16 year old patient with PVS who recovered significantly after 17 months).