assisted suicide

「安楽死」は医学用語としてeuthanasia，一般にはmercy killingと覚えていましたが、記事にあるようにassisted suicideとも言うのですね。記事ではeuthanasiaとも使われています。日本人の感覚で読んでいたらsuicideという言葉が使われる理由が読み取れませんでした。しかし、おそらくは「自ら命を絶つ決定をする」→「自殺」という論理構造になっているようです。やはりキリスト教などの特定の宗教の価値観の影響でしょうか。ちなみにLDOCEではsuicideを、"the act of killing yourself"とあり、Websterでは" the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally especially by a person of years of discretion and of sound mind"と定義されています。(Othello)

Assisted suicide: Over my dead body
Helping the terminally ill to die, once taboo, is gaining acceptance

VOTERS in Massachusetts will decide next month whether a terminally ill patient with less than six months to live should be able to use a doctor’s help in committing suicide. If they assent, as the polls suggest, the state will be the third, after Oregon and Washington, to legalise assisted suicide. New Jersey introduced a bill last month to decriminalise it. The Montana Supreme Court has ruled that doctors cannot be prosecuted for prescribing lethal drugs for terminally ill patients.
中略
All this reflects a big shift towards secular thinking and individual autonomy as well as growing worries about the medicalised, miserable and costly way of death that awaits many people in rich countries. Assisted suicide typically gains overwhelming public support; legislators, pro-family lobbies, churches and doctors’ groups tend to be more squeamish. They fear that legal, easy-to-get assisted suicide will have dire social and moral effects.

Over my dead body - Assisted suicide

at the helm/ over my dead body - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心：言葉の森から
suspected suicide - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心：言葉の森から