be withdrawing or withholding of artificial or "medically inappropriate" life support in hopeless cases, while palliative care is the name NASW uses for medical intervention intended for pain relief but not cure. Compare this with the term voluntary active euthanasia, or a physician's "administering a lethal dose after a clearly competent patient makes a fully voluntary and persistent request for aid in dying" (NASW 58). NASW's definition of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) coincides with the AMA's definition of assisted suicide; however, whereas the AMA distinguishes between the act of suicide and the doctor's providing means and knowledge, the NASW says that "physician and the patient are both involved" (NASW 58), insofar as the physician complies with the specific request of the (mentally competent) patient.
The term right to die has a legal connotation to assisted suicide. However, it also has moral aspects, which can mean
(1) "a right to be allowed to die," which would be a right of non-interference and would be exercised when one simply asked to be left alone and permitted to die a natural death. It also can mean (2) "a right to kill oneself," which would be a right to take one's own life free from interference by others (i.e., a right to unassisted suicide). Finally, it can mean (3) "a right to be killed by another at one's own request" (i.e., a right to assisted suicide) (Wennberg 180).
Wennberg, unlike the AMA, defines assisted suicide as one in which the assistant not the patient performs the act, consistent with voluntary passive euthanasia. He discusses "the right to kill oneself through the agency of another," which could imply only knowledge and means but not the deed.
The right to die is also connected to the terms death with dignity and rational suicide, which imply mental competence and which has arisen since 1980 owing to the AIDS epidemic (Cox, passim; Dangelantonio, 57-62). Battin (300-302) identifies asp...