what is the difference between euthanasia and assisted suicide and to what extent does euthanasia conflict with non maleficence??

Euthanasia - the deliberate ending of life of a person suffering from an incurable disease. In recent years the concept has been broadened to include the practice of withholding extraordinary means or “heroic measures,” and thus allowing the patient to die (see extraordinary treatment). A distinction was traditionally made between positive or active euthanasia, in which there is the deliberate ending of life and an action is taken to cause death in a person, and negative or passive euthanasia, which is the withholding of life-preserving procedures and treatments that would prolong the life of one who is incurably and terminally ill and could not survive without them. However, now all euthanasia is generally understood to be active, and so the more accurate term forgoing life-sustaining treatment is replacing passive euthanasia. Assisted suicide -a form of euthanasia in which a person wishes to commit suicide but feels unable to perform the act alone because of a physical disability or lack of knowledge about the most effective means. An individual who assists a suicide victim in accomplishing that goal may or may not be held responsible for the death, depending on local laws.

Simply, one can argue that removing of life by a practitioner is doing harm. However, this exposes the wider issue of whether the allieviating of suffering is equally as important as the preservation of life. Furthermore, the other pillars of medical ethics may somewhat negate the malificence of the act. Autonomy, benificence and justice have roles when evaluating this. A practitioner must always encourage the autonomy of their patients whilst aiming to do good and be just. Perhaps euthanasia allieviates suffering signficantly enough to meet these criteria. However, this decision rarely comes up to the practitioner as national law provides guidelines for Clinicans. In the UK the illegal nature of euthanasia implies that the act is malificent. However, there are signficant exempt issues that are worth acknowledgement. Doctorine of double effect - The principle of double effect—also known as the rule of double effect; the doctrine of double effect, often abbreviated as DDE or PDE, double-effect reasoning; or simply double effect—is a set of ethical criteria which Christian philosophers, and some others, have advocated for evaluating the permissibility of acting when one's otherwise legitimate act (for example, relieving a terminally ill patient's pain) may also cause an effect one would otherwise be obliged to avoid (sedation and a slightly shortened life). The first known example of double-effect reasoning is Thomas Aquinas' treatment of homicidal self-defense, in his work Summa Theologica. This set of criteria states that an action having foreseen harmful effects practically inseparable from the good effect is justifiable if the following are true 1) the nature of the act is itself good, or at least morally neutral 2) the agent intends the good effect and does not intend the bad effect either as a means to the good or as an end in itself 3) the good effect outweighs the bad effect in circumstances sufficiently grave to justify causing the bad effect and the agent exercises due diligence to minimize the harm. Example: morphine is used in pain relief but its chief side effect is respiratory depression (short shallow breathing). Doctors have been known to increase the dosage of morphine to treat pain whilst having the knowledge that this may ultimately kill them.