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In medical, philosophical, and legal literature, euthanasia is usually interpreted in different ways. It may be viewed as an irreversible outcome into non-existence, relieving a patient from suffering, as the killing of terminally ill people at their request, or as a conscious action leading to the painless death. Passive euthanasia is expressed in the fact that the provision of medical care aimed at prolonging life is stopped, shortly after which natural death occurs. Active euthanasia is understood as the introduction to a dying person of any drugs, other means, or other actions that entail a quick and painless onset of death.
In his essay, James Rachels first discusses the moral issue arising between the concepts of passive and active euthanasia. He argues that if the patient can no longer endure physical pain, and asks the doctor to hasten their death, and the doctor will simply stop their treatment, the patients suffering then will only intensify (Rachels, 2018). In this situation, active euthanasia in the form of lethal injection is more humane, according to Rachels.
The second issue about euthanasia that Rachels raises is the difference between killing and allowing one to die. He states that some researchers argue that passive euthanasia is not euthanasia at all, but this approach is only putting the problem aside. Even if allowing one to die is not euthanasia, it is necessary to show why this permission is moral and permissible. The American Medical Association Code states that doctors should never end a life (Rachels, 2018). However, doctors are not obliged to prolong life, making exceptional efforts when restoration of health is impossible. James Rachels, thus, argues that allowing one to die, unlike killing, should not contain a moral burden. He believes that if the intentions and the ensuing consequences are similar, then the actions are equally reprehensible. It follows that active euthanasia, other things being equal, is no worse than passive euthanasia.
For Rachels, it is necessary to emphasize that killing is sometimes even more humane than allowing one to die in order to override the AMAs distinction. If the intention in both cases is for the patient to die, then one action cannot be considered more morally acceptable than the other. Thus, in the end, he calls the doctors to express doubts in the moral doctrines AMA dictates and assess the actual situation at hand.
Reference
Rachels, J. (2018). Active and Passive euthanasia. In L. Vaughn (Ed.), Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning, Theory, and Contemporary Issues (Fifth Edition) (pp. 301305). essay, W. W. Norton & Company.
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