focuses on medical practice andethics in ancient and medieval times. By tracing attitudestoward euthanasia and suicide from antiquity to the present,the authors offer the historical perspective that has beenmissing in the debate. They argue that while bothGreco-Roman and Enlightenment thinkers accepted the idea ofsuicide, the Judeo-Christian tradition does not. CharlesMcKhann, professor of surgery at Yale Medical School, joinsthe increasingly-vocal minority within the medical communitywho have begun to question the profession's traditionalopposition to PAS. He argues that PAS is accepted as a lastresort.(McCuen pg. 67) Richard A. McCormick, dean of Catholic moraltheologians, once said that we can easily soften resistanceto the unacceptable if we confuse it with the acceptable.The easiest way to skew the euthanasia /PAS debate is to seeit as a "pulling the plug " issue. But forgoing useless ordisproportionately burdensome treatment--which is what wegenerally mean by "pulling the plug."--is not the same aseuthanasia or PAS. Standard medical, moral and legalpractices allow competent patients or the surrogate ofincompetent patients to select from proposed treatments orto refuse treatment altogether. (Walker pg. 26)The terms voluntary active euthanasia andphysician-assisted suicide sometimes are usedinterchangeably, confusing the two practices. Voluntaryactive euthanasia means a deliberate intervention, bysomeone other than the person whose life is at stake,directly intended to end that life. The patient must becompetent and terminally ill, and must make a fullyvoluntary and persistent request for aid in dying. A commonway to think about euthanasia is that a physician gives alethal injection to the patient who wants to die. The term"mercy killing" is often used in place of "euthanasia" toemphasize that such an act is directly intended as an act ofkindness to end suffering. In PAS (or what McKhann prefers to call "assisteddying" a physician h...
