The topic of active and passive euthanasia has become a heavily discuss proposition. Many argue against active euthanasia and find that it is never permissible to take the action of killing someone who is very sick in order to prevent any more suffering. Instead, they seem to support the action of letting one die by withholding any treatment that will contribute to try to save their lives, passive euthanasia. The action of killing someone (active) is taken in such a situation when a patient is in a condition where there is nothing their doctor can do to save them from dying. Instead of their family watching them suffer, and the patient continuing to experience anymore unbearable pain, it is requested that the doctor ends their life for them, usually carried out by lethal injection, "quick and painless." " .
On the other hand, letting someone die (passive) is carried out if a person is hospitalized from a chronic illness and are placed on life support. Knowing that they have no chance of living, it is requested that if the person experience anything, such as going into analytic shock, the doctor should not resuscitate or even chose to takes them off life support. Though, these two are both acts, in some shape or form, of taking another person's life from them, I believe that active euthanasia is moral.
James Rachel says, "One reason why so many people think that there is an important moral difference between active and passive euthanasia is that they think killing someone is morally worse than letting someone die"" (864). He argues that active euthanasia is not any worse than passive euthanasia, meaning that killing and letting die are morally equivalent if: (1) our intentions are the same in both cases and (2) our consequences are the same. To further explain his position, he uses an example of two cases where, in both, a man will gain a large inheritance if something is to happen to his six year old cousin.
