be kept alive for many years through a variety of measures, long past the time they may have any possibility of independent existence. Life can also be extended, using pain-killers and other types of medication, even though the quality of life is apparently quite low.
There are two different issues operating here. One is the issue of withholding or withdrawing treatment. The other issue, which has increasingly been discussed, is the issue of physician-assisted suicide for terminal patients.
Glynn (1999) argued in favor of withholding treatment, but against physician-assisted suicide, noting that they are two very different options. According to him, withholding treatment is an example of the "double effect" in which an act which is intended for a morally good purpose could have an unintended, but permissible, bad effect. This is the case with withholding treatment from a terminally ill patient. The effect is to allow the patient to die, rather than cause the patient to die, as with physician-assisted
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