medical health
What can qualify as a terminal illness with respect to assisted suicide?
<p>As an example, HIV used to be considered a terminal disease by doctors. Nowadays, there are treatments which extend life significantly for HIV patients, and doctors consider it to be a manageable disease through treatment rather than terminal.</p>

<p>Does the law have an explicit definition of terminal disease? Or what qualifies a disease to be used as a reason for assisted suicide in relevant jurisdiction?</p>

<p>The law in Washington, <a href="https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=70.245&amp;full=true" rel="nofollow noreferrer">RCW 70.245</a>, redined "terminal illness" as</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>an incurable and irreversible disease that has been medically
  confirmed and will, within reasonable medical judgment, produce death
  within six months.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520162AB15" rel="nofollow noreferrer">California law</a> and <a href="https://health.hawaii.gov/opppd/files/2018/11/OCOC-Act2.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Hawaii law</a> say the same thing</p>

<p>In Oregon, under <a href="https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors127.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ORS 127.505</a>, the relevant term is "terminal condition", defines as</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>a health condition in which death is imminent irrespective of
  treatment, and where the application of life-sustaining procedures or
  the artificial administration of nutrition and hydration serves only
  to postpone the moment of death of the principal.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The <a href="https://www.worldrtd.net/dutch-law-termination-life-request-and-assisted-suicide-complete-text" rel="nofollow noreferrer">law of The Netherlands</a> is less restrictive, and does not involve "terminal" conditions. The most relevant condition from article 2 is that there must be a finding that "the patient's suffering is unbearable with no prospect of improvement" (plus, there are informed consent and a second opinion standards to be met). The <a href="https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-14/royal-assent" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Canadian law</a> in §241.2 requires that "they have a grievous and irremediable medical condition". That means, specifically, that</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>(a) they have a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability;</p>
  
  <p>(b) they are in an advanced state of irreversible decline in
  capability;</p>
  
  <p>(c) that illness, disease or disability or that state of decline
  causes them enduring physical or psychological suffering that is
  intolerable to them and that cannot be relieved under conditions that
  they consider acceptable; and</p>
  
  <p>(d) their natural death has become reasonably foreseeable, taking into
  account all of their medical circumstances, without a prognosis
  necessarily having been made as to the specific length of time that
  they have remaining.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Simply having been exposed to a virus, or even contracting the disease AIDS, does not qualify under the law. At later points in the progression of the diseases, it could – depending on jurisdiction.</p>
