June 28, 2020
What is Voluntary Assisted Dying?
What is Voluntary Assisted Dying?
Voluntary Assisted Dying is the newest term to describe the practice of assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia.
The term replaces previous terms of medically assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia.
The aim of is to get rid of any association with ‘suicide’.
Some argue that the golden rule is to bury the act in semantics.
Medically Assisted Suicide & Voluntary Euthanasia
With the exception of Switzerland and Germany (at least at the current time), assisted suicide (also called voluntary assisted dying or medical aid in dying) is a medical process.
People who can ask for help to die are, usually, people who have been diagnosed by a medical professional with a terminal illness.
A terminally ill patient is defined as someone who, as a result of their illness, is expected to die within less than six months.
If their condition is neurological (eg. ALS/ MND) expected death must be within 12 months.
The person who seeks help to die is a patient.
The person who is legally allowed to provide this assistance is, by definition, a medical professional (usually a doctor).
The drugs needed to bring about the death are only able to be provided by the medical professional.
No other methods of peacefully dying are generally used (eg. no Exit bag and gas).
VAD Activist, Philip Nitschke
Assisted Suicide vs Voluntary Euthanasia
In terms of legal definitions, what sets assisted suicide apart from voluntary euthanasia, is that it is the patient, themselves, who must administer the lethal drug.
Under Voluntary Assisted Dying laws, a doctor cannot give a patient a lethal injection.
That said, in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxumbourg (the countries where voluntary euthanasia vis a vis assisted suicide) a doctor can give a patient a lethal injection.
In some other places (eg. Victoria in Australia) where assisted suicide is legal, a doctor can give a lethal injection but only if the patient is unable to administer the drug themselves (eg. due to their illness).
Read more in the Peaceful Pill eHandbook – Essentials Edition.