The author of this article argues that the distinction between active voluntary euthanasia & passive volunatry euthanasia can no longer be sustained, because the principle of “double effect” is ethically meaningless. According to him, we now use indirect & often harmful methods to obtain goals that we should pursue directly. Therefore, he argues, physician assisted suicide should be legalized & medicalized so that practices can be regulated & further recourse to self-help methods (handguns, drugs, etc.) can be avoided.