Some people see it as no difference between "pulling the plug" as they do in giving lethal drugs to a patient where as the intended end result is death. .
One of the biggest mistakes made is that because the two share one characteristic they are the same. If this were the case then you would have to point the finger at a doctor who stops trying to resuscitate a patient. It would then be considered the doctor who stopped and not the cardiac arrest that killed the patient. .
By identifying a difference between allowing to die and killing the courts have opened a way for states to regulate the ways in which treatment may be refused. This is as well putting at risk the hard won rights of the patient to refuse treatment if they feel that they do not want it. .
James Rachels felr that by just picking to let die and not play an active role in using euthanasia you are prolonging the suffering which goes against the idea of the humanity in which we are arguing over in the first place. He gives an example of two babies born with Down's syndrome one with a small intestinal blockage and the other without. The one without is allowed to live while the other is not. While the intestinal blockage is not the issue it is the reason a baby is allowed to die for another "problem" it has when it is born. .
He talks about two parents that want to collect money for their six year old to die. He feels that if a father goes into the bathroom and drowns his baby in the tub it is not the same as a parent who walks into the bathroom and watches his baby fall into the tub and not be able to get out and doesn't help him. While this is true in this case it is the reasons the father does not help his son out of the water that is wrong not that he can't help him out of the water.
Rachels attacks the idea that when a doctor performs euthanasia he does something and when he refuses treatment he does not.