While the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia under certain conditions yesterday, in many states the practice is implicitly allowed.
Some turn a blind eye to "assisted suicide", but many others refuse to countenance any legal framework for "active euthanasia". In Sweden "suicide assistance" is a non-punishable offence. A doctor can, in extreme cases, unplug life-support machines.
Denmark allows any patient with an incurable disease to make up his or her mind to decide when to stop vital treatment.
In France euthanasia is illegal, but the law does distinguish between active euthanasia - the deliberate act of causing death, regarded as murder - and passive euthanasia or "therapeutic abstention", regarded as refusing to medically prolong the life functions of a patient.
Under British law euthanasia is illegal. However, in 1993 and 1994 the courts did grant leave to doctors to end the lives of people artificially kept alive. In June 1996 a patient in Scotland was "authorised to die".
US federal law forbids euthanasia. In November 1998 voters in the state of Michigan refused to legalise "assisted suicide" in a referendum.
In Australia the first law on euthanasia in the world was voted by the parliament of the Northern Territories in 1996, but the Australian government passed legislation overriding the law eight months later.