Moral Distinction Between Active and Passive Euthanasia

In recent years, the debate on euthanasia has become more intensely. Specially, in the debate between the active and passive euthanasia, some medical people think to provide a patient with the death they want without having to deal with the difficult moral problems they would face if they deliberately killed that person. In the article “Supreme Court clarifies on active, passive euthanasia”, the court noticed that “the general legal position all over the world seems to be that while active euthanasia is illegal unless there is legislation permitting it; passive euthanasia is legal even without legislation, provided certain conditions and safeguards are followed” (Thaindian News). That’s sound like, in some situation, if we cannot “kill” the patient directly, we could “let him die” indirectly with less moral consideration. The reason why they think this way is because they believe the active euthanasia is always worse than passive euthanasia in the moral sense. However, in many cases, it may be not. So, the other questions come out: Is the active euthanasia always worse than passive morally? Is there a moral distinction between the active and passive euthanasia? This paper will try to prove there is no real moral difference between the active and passive euthanasia, and active euthanasia is not any worse than passive euthanasia morally. In many cases where it is right to let a patient die, it is also right to practice active euthanasia.

Many people make a moral distinction between active and passive euthanasia. They think that it is acceptable to withhold treatment and allow a patient to die, but that it is never acceptable to kill a patient by a deliberate act. But, to remove or withhold treatment is really not a deliberate act? When the medical professional decides to let patent die through withholding the treatment, he clearly understands that will cause his death, just same as giving a lethal injection. Moreover, the action of removing the life-support machines, in itself, is a deliberate act. So both “killing” and “let him die” are deliberate acts, and they have same purpose. The only difference is they take a different process to achieve the same result.

Since stopping treatment is a deliberate act, and so is deciding not to carry out a particular treatment. “Switching off a respirator requires someone to carry out the action of throwing the switch. If the patient dies as a result of the doctor switching off the respirator then although it's certainly true that the patient dies from lung cancer, it’s also true that the immediate cause of their death is the switching off of the breathing machine”(BBC NEWS ). In active euthanasia, the doctor takes an action with the intention that it will cause the patient’s death. In passive euthanasia, when a doctor lets someone