As new technologies and research enabled physicians the means to prolong the lives of terminally ill patients, the controversy surrounding the debate over euthanasia continues to escalate. In such issues that create moral debate, the law often intervenes. Such is the case with euthanasia ôdeath and dignityö provisions that make some forms of ôsuicideö immune from legal prosecution. In his article Active and Passive Euthanasia, James Rachels argues that laws and medical ethics should not base such matters on a distinction between ôactiveö (prohibited) and ôpassiveö (permitted) euthanasia. The distinction often made by the medical community and lawmakers is as follows: ôThe idea that it is permissible, at least in some cases, to withhold treatment and allow a patient to die, but it is never permissible to take any direct action designed to kill the patientö (Rachels, 542). After a review of RachelsÆ argument against this doctrine and for my own reasons to be revealed later, euthanasia should not be legal under any circumstances.
In Active and Passive Euthanasia, Rachels effectively calls into question the rationale typically given in support of ôpassiveö euthanasia. He presents each justification and then undermines it. With respect to patient suffering and pain, Rachels demonstrates by example how withholding treatment over direct action to terminate life may make the patient ôsuffer more than he would if more direct action were taken and a lethal injection givenö (543). Rachels also illustrates who basing matters of life or death on the distinction between ôactiveö and ôpassiveö euthanasia leads to decision-making that is often based on irrelevant grounds (Rachels 544). Rachels shows the lack of logic in thinking that supports the doctrine when it posits that ôkilling someone is morally worse than letting someone dieö (544). We see this is cle
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