The Free Medical Dictionary.com defines euthanasia as: "1. An easy or painless death. 2. The deliberate ending of life of a person suffering from an incurable disease. In recent years the concept has been broadened to include the practice of withholding extraordinary means or "heroic measures," and thus allowing the patient to die. A distinction was traditionally made between positive or active euthanasia, in which there is the deliberate ending of life and an action is taken to cause death in a person, and negative or passive euthanasia, which is the withholding of life-preserving procedures and treatments that would prolong the life of one who is incurably and terminally ill and could not survive without them. However, now all euthanasia is generally understood to be active, and so the more accurate term forgoing life-sustaining treatment is replacing passive euthanasia."