By Andy Ho, Senior Writer

THE authorities are promoting Advance Medical Directives, or AMDs. They want us to understand our right to refuse life-sustaining therapies, even if doing so results in death. That is passive euthanasia.

Last week, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan suggested we might even have to consider legalising active euthanasia - presumably for the terminally ill who are mentally competent.

As no survey to gauge public opinion on this subject has been conducted, we don't know how much support there is for these proposals. But we know this much from the United States: There was considerable public anger over news that doctors had allegedly euthanised some patients who could not be evacuated during Hurricane Katrina.

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