“That which is called a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”*
Thus runs the amazingly fertile thought of the single most quoted speaker of the English language. And within the context of Romeo’s love for Juliet we are happy to approve.
However the exact correspondence of words to their objects is crucial to coherent thought, and doubly crucial when those words are found in written texts of law.
When two words are assumed to refer to the same object, but actually point to different things, we have a problem. And when one key word is legally enshrined, and charged with marking the limits of stable policy –but is none-the-less in a state of dynamic flux– we have another.
Sadly, with “Assisted Suicide” and “Medical Aid in Dying” (and indeed with all of the terms surrounding the assisted death debate) we have both of these problems in spades.