PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Jukka Varelius TI - Physician-assisted dying and two senses of an incurable condition AID - 10.1136/medethics-2016-103487 DP - 2016 Sep 01 TA - Journal of Medical Ethics PG - 601--604 VI - 42 IP - 9 4099 - http://jme.bmj.com/content/42/9/601.short 4100 - http://jme.bmj.com/content/42/9/601.full SO - J Med Ethics2016 Sep 01; 42 AB - It is commonly accepted that voluntary active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide can be allowed, if at all, only in the cases of patients whose conditions are incurable. Yet, there are different understandings of when a patient's condition is incurable. In this article, I consider two understandings of the notion of an incurable condition that can be found in the recent debate on physician-assisted dying. According to one of them, a condition is incurable when it is known that there is no cure for it. According to the other, a condition is incurable when no cure is known to exist for it. I propose two criteria for assessing the conceptions and maintain that, in light of the criteria, the latter is more plausible than the former.