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As both Wolf¹ and Jansen-van der Weide and colleagues² underline, knowing whether legal euthanasia or assisted suicide can be kept "within agreed boundaries"¹ is an important question. This, however, does not apply solely to countries where euthanasia or assisted suicide is permitted. In empirical studies, up to 3.7% of US physicians reported having practiced assisted suicide and up to 9.4% reported having practiced euthanasia.³ According to another study, intensive care unit physicians in France, where euthanasia is illegal, are more likely to report having practiced "deliberate administration of medication to speed death in patients with no chance of recovering a meaningful life" compared with their colleagues from 11 European countries including the Netherlands.^4(p1630) In Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal under certain circumstances but not euthanasia,⁵ an international study reported that 1.04% of deaths could be due to assisted suicide, 0.27% to euthanasia, and 0.42% to ending of life without . . . [Full Text of this Article]

AUTHOR INFORMATION
Samia A. Hurst, MD

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