This article presents legal issues related to therapeutic decisions made by doctors and to euthanasia and assisted suicide, which are prohibited and penalized in the Polish legal system. The paper refers to the terms ‘futile therapy’ and ‘over-zealous treatment’. It was also considered appropriate to refer to the concept of resuscitation, which can be understood narrowly as cardiopulmonary resuscitation or broadly as all activities aimed at potentially reversing the dying process. Completion of resuscitation as it is broadly understood means that (unless there has been recovery) it is considered a futile therapy.