If a dying patient requests that a doctor inject him with a lethal dose of drugs to end his life and the doctor does as requested, this would be called "active voluntary euthanasia." This action is what put Dr. Jack Kevorkian behind bars. If a doctor or others perform this action without the patient's consent or request, it is called, "active involuntary euthanasia."
This brings us to the definitions and issues concerning suicide. Lately I have found more reference to a person deliberating taking his or her own life being called,"self-deliverance." If one puts a lot of thought into ending one's life and that decision is not based on emotion or psychological reasons then it is called, "rational suicide" and if someone were to starve themselves to death as some elderly persons do, then that is a "silent suicide."
And finally, when a doctor prescribes or provides a lethal drug or other means, that a person then uses to take his or her own life, that is what everyone has been reading about the last ten years, and is referred to as, "physician assisted suicide."
I hope that this article will provide the means for my readers to better understand my future articles on "the right to die." I'd like to close with the definition of "murder or homicide," which is defined as, the "unlawful killing of a person who wishes to live."
