The law allows mentally competent patients who are terminally ill to ask their doctors for lethal drugs.

In the Netherlands today it is common for competent patients who regard their suffering as intolerable to request assistance in dying.

A competent adult patient is free to decide ... not to have a blood transfusion.

Nevertheless, lower courts have increasingly held that a competent patient does have the right to refuse any treatment for himself.

Some physicians say euthanasia is a rational choice for competent patients who wish to die to escape unbearable suffering.

They believe that any competent terminally-ill patient should have the right to choose death or refuse life-saving treatment.

Doctors in 12 states can now prescribe lethal drugs for competent, dying patients, but this should not go unregulated.

Self-monitoring and self-management are safe options for competent patients, though their practice varies.

Ms B was a competent but paralysed, ventilator-dependent patient, and she won the right to have the ventilator turned off.

In general, ambulance squads are unable to contravene the wishes of a mentally competent patient.