Active And Passive Euthanasia

Active and Passive Euthanasia

-James Rachels

I agree with James Rachels’ Active and Passive Euthanasia, and I wish to provide further support for those premises. Rachel’s argues that killing is not in itself any worse than letting someone die. Active euthanasia is not any worse than passive euthanasia. An example of how Active euthanasia is killing is when one helps another by providing the right medication and dosage instructions to put that person to death. An example of Passive euthanasia is allowing a person to die by starving or not giving treatment needed to keep the patient alive. They are to be treated the same because the intentions and ending result are the same. There is no difference between these since they both end in death.

The killing of a sick individual, who does not feel the need to live, is wrong in my opinion. These individuals should be taught how to live with their sickness or handicap. They should be taught to value their life, and that just waking up is a blessing itself. There should not be the option of euthanasia for them to seek out. Whether it be active or passive, the person who is aiding or overseeing the death is morally wrong. They should be tried as a killer along with others who have killed for other reasons other than “helping another.”

Rachel’s creates an example of Smith, a money hungry man who drowns his six year old cousin for financial gain. In one scenario he comes in while the child is taking a bath and drowns the child and arranges to make it look like an accident. This is analogous to active euthanasia. In the second scenario there is Jones, a man who is also to gain if anything happens to his six-year old cousin. He enters the bathroom to drown his cousin but sees that she has slipped and hit her head and is drowning from being unconscious. Instead of helping