According to The Telegraph, motor neuron disease made Diane Pretty's body paralysed and choking or suffocation prior to death might happen to her. Fearing this, she requested an early death assisted by her husband, but the court rejected. Eventually, Mrs. Pretty departed her life without any assistance (The Telegraph, 2002). This is one of many real cases making answers for the question that whether euthanasia is acceptable, incurably ill patients' suffering concerned, become a fierce debate. The term 'Euthanasia' can be comprehended as a mercy killing, an intentional action to end of someone's lives to free them from intolerable suffering. Physician-assisted suicide (PAS), however, slightly differs from euthanasia as it refers to a killing action processed by a terminally ill patient him/herself 'with the assistance from a doctor, relative or another person' (Nordqvist, 2010). From the terminally ill patients' point of view, it is important that desires for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide should be considered seriously to help them in treatment, regardless whether euthanasia …show more content…
In a research article by Wilson et al (2000), mortally ill patients who did not requested euthanasia or PAS at that moment reported the reasons making them possibly request in the future. According to the research, two out of 63 reasons given by patients relate to 'physical symptoms' and 'physical distress', which accounted to 47% and 34% of the total patients studied. 62 remained reasons taken for granted relates to mental problems such as psychological lifestyle, the feeling of being a burden and psychological distress (Wilson et al, 2000, p. 2455). Still the results were rather unclear as it did not include different perspective toward euthanasia/PAS of different types of patients. A patient with positive attitude and a patient with negative attitude would have different