[Euthanasia--limits of therapy in oncology. From the viewpoint of the attorney].

Confidence is the major prerequisite for a doctor to be able to help his seriously ill patient. The patient's expectations of this confidence are: the doctor will not act without the patient's consent and the doctor will not undertake any measure to shorten the patient's life. The patient is strengthened in this confidence by Austrian law in as much as any treatment without the patient's consent is punishable, even when performed secundum artem (section 110 StGB). This principle prohibits necessary and life-sustaining treatment if refused by the patient after appropriate clarification. Alternatively, this principle gives the patient the right to a merciful death by refusing life-prolonging treatment which is of no further benefit. Even more important is the legal prohibition of intentional hastening of death (euthanasia). Even the patient's own repeated request does not exculp the doctor if he directly acts to end the life of the patient before the disease has run its natural course (sections 77, 78 StGB). A "crisis of confidence", which can be found sometimes in the elderly and severe ill patients, can only by overcome by inspiring confidence and by a direct personal doctor to patient relationship. Law and ethics dictate: intentional shortening of life by doctors: never; humanitarian care for the dying: always.