In 1992, a certain Dr. Cox was tried in a UK court like an ordinary lawbreaker and was later given a suspended sentence. His crime: helping cause the death of a 70-year-old female patient, a Mrs. Boyes, who had herself asked him to take her life. She had been extremely ill and no medicine or treatment could ease her physical pain. In fact, she would scream "like a dog" whenever someone touched her. Dr. Cox had repeatedly turned down her requests for death because it was both against the law and contrary to prevalent medical ethics.
Euthanasia denotes the taking of a patient's life by a doctor in a terminal illness, old age, vegetative state or any similar case in order to give him or her a peaceful death. The word Euthanasia is derived from the Greek words euthanatos, which is translated by The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary as 'a gentle and easy death'. The dictionary further explains it as 'the action of bringing about such a death, especially of a person who requests it as a release from incurable disease'. Euthanasia can be voluntary, meaning the patient has expressed his desire to be killed, or nonvoluntary, also called mercy killing, when the patient is killed without his or her consent, with someone else making the choice on his or her behalf. Nowadays however, the word Euthanasia is generally used to mean Voluntary Euthanasia unless otherwise stated.
Dr. Cox complied after continuous pleas from Mrs. Boyes, to perform on her Voluntary Active Euthanasia. This meant he would, with her active consent, help speed up her death with the help of drugs. He injected her with potassium chloride and she died peacefully. However, life for Dr. Cox became hardly peaceful after this incident. His action elicited strong emotions from the public. Legal action ensued. In the eyes of pro-life activists, he was a murderer. But for Euthanasia supporters, he was a hero.
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