Court cases, such as the case of Nancy Cruzan heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990, have helped define social policy on these issues. Our society has shown itself to be more comfortable with policies that authorize a passive role with respect to an individual's right to die, such as honoring a terminally ill patient's request to withhold or withdraw certain aggressive medical interventions, rather than with an active role in hastening death, such as assisted suicide. Common to all of these issues is a need to balance several claims. On one side, individual patients want control over the final days and moments of their lives. On another, society has a broad interest in protecting life and protecting the ability of medicine to cure and care for the ill.
Involuntary euthanasia is one of the least accepted social policies.
It refers to an intervention that ends a patient's life without obtaining the informed consent of the patient. Voluntary active euthanasia involves an intervention requested by a competent individual that is administered to cause death, such as a lethal injection. Although no law currently authorizes the practice, polls show that a growing number of Americans support honoring a patient's request for voluntary active euthanasia. Assisted suicide Assisted suicide refers to the act of providing the means to commit suicide knowing that the recipient plans to use them to end his or her life. Physician-assisted suicide specifically refers to a physician providing medications or other interventions with the understanding that a patient plans to use them to end his or her own life.