释义 |
mercy killing  noun [mass noun]The killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease: should the law allow mercy killing to be available? [count noun]: it seems probably that some doctors carry out mercy killings...- A legal test case has defined the limits within which doctors in the Netherlands, especially general practitioners, can agree to a patient's request for mercy killing.
- He felt that doctors addressing genuine requests for mercy killing by their patients should not be turned into criminals.
- In 2001 the Netherlands became the first country to legalise euthanasia, although doctors had been performing the so-called mercy killing of patients unofficially for some time.
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