assisted suicide

assisted dying, aid in dying, death with dignity, assisted death. "A rational, terminally ill patient's choice to self-administer medications to shorten an agonizing dying process needs to be respected in language as well as in deed" (from the website of the nonprofit organization Compassion & Choices). Noting the importance of using accurate, unbiased language, the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine has rejected what it calls the emotionally charged term "physician-assisted suicide." Oregon's landmark 1997 Death With Dignity Act models the desired language and law. Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg (Los Angeles Times) points out that the word suicide suggests fanaticism, desperation, or mental unbalance and that the suffix "-cide" has overtones of criminality or wrongdoing. Right-to-die supporters distinguish between taking your life when you are not otherwise dying (suicide) and the hastening, or not prolonging, of a death that is already on its way. The term "euthanasia," which is the practice of ending, in a painless way, a life that is almost ended in all but the suffering, is not often used today, perhaps because of its clinical aspect.