Euthanasia: Deciding Who Should Live

Euthanasia is intentionally killing or letting someone die to take them out of the pain and suffering they are in or because they asked to die. There are several different scenarios that involve euthanasia, and you may have a different opinion concerning each situation. Some questions concerning euthanasia are the following: Is it worse to kill a patient or let them die? Should you a doctor kill a patient if they ask to be killed? What if they are just depressed or in a condition that is not fatal? Should people be forced to stay alive? What if they are in great, lasting pain? Is euthanasia wrong?

Support for Euthanasia

“The arguments for euthanasia focus upon two human and significant concerns: compassion for those who are painfully and terminally ill, and concern for the human dignity associated with freedom of choice.”

Basically, those who support euthanasia argue that if someone has excruciating pain that may never go away, or if the person is very ill and will die if taken off medicine, they should be killed if they want to in order to take them out of the pain and suffering that they are constantly dealing with. Proponents of euthanasia also argue that humans should have the freedom to decide whether they want to live or not.

Supporters also say that when a doctor helps a dying patient die because the patient requested it, it is not wrong because the doctor is cutting short the dying patient’s suffering. They also say that it makes no difference if the doctor gives the patient something that will kill them, or if the doctor does not give the patient something such as drugs that will keep them alive longer.

Arguments against Euthanasia

One argument against euthanasia is that people should not be able to choose to die because when they cause their own death, they show that they have decided that their life is meaningless and has no worth to anyone. Killing oneself is also the greatest way to shut everyone out of one’s life. Additionally, when a person dies, their death usually greatly affects people in a negative way.

Furthermore, from a Christian perspective, “It is the courage to accept one’s own life as having worth no matter what life may bring, including the threat of death, because that life remains meaningful and is regarded worthy by God, regardless of what life may be like.”

It is also argued that accepting euthanasia as a public policy will lead to a much larger range of people being allowed to die.

Active and Passive Euthanasia

There are two different types of euthanasia that are used to bring about the death of someone. At first thought, most people think that active euthanasia is worse that passive euthanasia, but is one really worse than the other? “The important difference between active and passive euthanasia is that, in passive euthanasia, the doctor does not do anything to bring about the patient’s death. The doctor does nothing, and the patient dies of whatever ills already afflict him. In active euthanasia, however, the doctor does something to bring about the patient’s death; he kills him. The doctor who gives the patient with cancer a lethal injection has himself caused his patient’s death; whereas if he merely ceases treatment, the cancer is the cause of the death.”

The main reason that people are quick to view active euthanasia worse, is because murder is viewed as such a great evil - which it is. But really both whether by active and passive euthanasia, the doctor is bringing about the patient’s death either way, he is just doing it through different means. So as James Rachels argues in his article, one is not morally worse than the other.