Abstract

This article rejects the traditional division of “active/passive euthanasia”. Such concept usage carries the potential for adding significant confusion and unnecessary complexity to the already extraordinarily complex issues surrounding euthanasia, assisted suicide and various related end-of-life acts such as withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatments. Whatever their normative view of euthanasia, discussants are well advised to use one particular and uniform understanding of euthanasia; namely, what it is taken to mean in the Netherlands. In this conception, there is no such thing as “passive euthanasia”.