An example of this would be administering an injection to kill a patient. Both active and passive euthanasia help a person to end their suffering. Passive euthanasia is an option given to people through living wills. A living will provides a person with a means of making their wishes known in the event they are no longer able to convey them. In the will they can state what treatments they would or would not like to use in order to prolong their life. A person may appoint someone, usually a family member, in their living will to make these decisions if they are not in a state of mind to do. For example, a person can state that they would not like to be kept alive by feeding tubes if these were necessary to sustain their life. That person would then die of starvation. It is perfectly legal to execute a living will which states ones preferences regarding passive euthanasia. Active euthanasia is against the laws of most states. Our current laws allow for more humane treatment of animals than for human beings. Our beloved family pet was put to sleep last spring. The veterinarian told us that she was suffering and there was nothing he could do to alleviate that suffering. She would never be able to run and play again. She would continue to breath for a while but each breath would be labored and painful. He told us that if we loved her we would let her die an easy and painless death brought about by a lethal injection. We trusted him and held her in our arms as she painlessly fell asleep for the last time. My grandfather's death of lung cancer is in sharp contrast to the death of our dog. He could not eat and shrunk to a shadow of his previous self. He begged to die when the pain got so bad he could not stand it. There was no hope that he would ever get better and he knew that. Unlike my dog, he was forced to wait for the disease to take his life.
