Active and Passive Euthanasia
Active and passive euthanasia have been debatable topics for years. The word “euthanasia”, derived from the Greek “eu-thanatos” simply means “a good death” (Perri, 1996). Passive (voluntary) euthanasia occurs when a terminally ill patient expressed his/her wish to remove life-supports and the patient is permitted to die “naturally” or “as a consequence of the disease.” Active (involuntary) euthanasia—that is the bringing about of a person's death without the consent of the person—it is almost always treated as homicide, even when the act can be recognized as producing a "merciful death" (Larue, 1999). It is often argued that doctors are justified in allowing their patients to die by withdrawing or withholding treatment, but are not justified in killing them. Although, active and passive euthanasia might seem generally accepted by the medical profession, at the same time, it is still broadly debated.
As it is directly derived from the Rachels’s article, the debate revolves around the following statement: “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 patient” (364). There is a debate as to whether there is really any difference between active and passive euthanasia. In the minds of some, the removal of life-support, or passive euthanasia, is defined as "doing something to terminate life" (Larue, 1999). At the same time, "passive euthanasia" has become a term serving only to deny responsibility and perhaps to allow the medical staff and the physicians from being accused of having something done to cause the patient's death.
The second major issue in the euthanasia world is that the conventional doctrine leads to decisions “concerning life and death of human beings made on irrelevant grounds” (365). In his article,