James Rachels' Active and Passive Euthanasia

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James Rachels' Essay, "Active and Passive Euthanasia
Most doctors reject taking direct actions meant for killing a patient when in a critical health state (active euthanasia) but embrace the idea of letting a patient die by withholding treatment when in such critical situations (passive euthanasia). This paper compares and contrasts passive and active euthanasia according to James Rachels' perspectives.
Active and passive euthanasia end a patient’s life but differ in specific ways. Annadurai et al. defined euthanasia as the physician's act of accelerating a patient's death to stop more suffering, and active euthanasia is the doctor's deliberate actions to end a patient's life if they are terminally ill or have a non-curable condition. The doctor can administer a lethal medication, procedure, or substance to help a terminally ill patient die (Brassington). Conversely, passive euthanasia permits withdrawing or stopping necessary treatment for maintaining a patient's life to enhance their death (Annadurai et al.). Brassington explained that the physician deliberately withholds a life-preserving procedure or substance.
James Rachels made several arguments to persuade doctors to rethink euthanasia perspectives. He argued that active and passive euthanasia forms have no moral differences because they both end a patient's life. For instance, James argued that a doctor's actions of withholding treatment for a patient with an incurable illness who is likely to die even when on present treatment could prolong the patient's suffering and time to die, unlike when the doctor takes direct action, like giving the patient a lethal drug, to hasten their death (Rachels 2). Active euthanasia, in this case, would cause a painless and quick death without suffering, unlike passive euthanasia, which could cause a painful and slow death with more suffering (Rachels 3). Therefore, although both active and passive euthanasia enhances a patient's death with different levels of suffering and time taken, there is no moral difference when doctors prefer passive euthanasia to active euthanasia since the two cause the patient's death. The strength of this argument is that there is no preferable mode of euthanasia between active and passive forms since they are both morally wrong actions. Nevertheless, this argument is weak because Rachels failed to consider the doctor's intentions when based on the patient's wishes.
In another argument, James Rachels asserted that it is absurd that doctors use irrelevant grounds to base their perspectives on whether to let a patient die or take deliberate action to enhance death. For instance, he highlighted that doctors could let a Down syndrome infant with intestinal blockage die by withholding operations (Rachels 3). Alternatively, the doctor could take deliberate actions to painlessly and quickly kill a Down syndrome infant without intestinal...