Intentionally allowing death is morally the same as intentionally killing because both involve killing someone!

• For several decades, bioethicists have debated whether killing differs from letting die. A leading physician in medical ethics once admitted, “I have had occasion to give a patient pain medication we both knew would shorten her life.”  Obviously, we can ask: does this differ from killing her?  Some have argued that just as rape and making love are different, so are killing and assisted suicide.  Even so, James Rachels argues that this distinction has no inherent moral value and often leads to decisions about death based on irrelevant factors.  What argument(s) does Rachels’ use to help to establish this thesis?  Is intending death by removing a respirator equivalent to suffocating a patient with a pillow?  Is it difficult to draw a line between active and passive?  Why or why not?

General Paper Instructions:

Your essay needs to be typewritten, printed on one side of the page, in black ink, double-spaced, with one-inch margins on all sides.  You must either use MLA or CMS style.  I prefer Times New Roman font, size twelve.  Lastly, your essay needs to be at least three FULL pages in length, but the essay should not exceed five pages.

For several decades, bioethicists have debated whether killing differs from letting die. A leading physician in medical ethics once admitted, “I have had occasion to give a patient pain medication we both knew would shorten her life.”  Obviously, we can ask: does this differ from killing her?  Some have argued that just as rape and making love are different, so are killing and assisted suicide.  Even so, James Rachels argues that this distinction has no inherent moral value and often leads to decisions about death based on irrelevant factors.  What argument(s) does Rachels’ use to help to establish this thesis?  Is intending death by removing a respirator equivalent to suffocating a patient with a pillow?  Is it difficult to draw a line between active and passive?  Why or why not?

Introduction

Bioethicists have debated whether killing differs from letting die for several decades. A leading physician in medical ethics once admitted, “I have had occasion to give a patient pain medication we both knew would shorten her life.” Obviously, we can ask: does this differ from killing her? Some have argued that just as rape and making love are different, so are killing and assisted suicide. Even so, James Rachels argues that this distinction has no inherent moral value and often leads to decisions about death based on irrelevant factors. What argument(s) does Rachels use to help establish this thesis? Is intentionally removing a respirator equivalent to suffocating a patient with a pillow? Is it difficult to draw a line between active or passive killing? Why or why not?

As Rachels puts it, “the line between killing and letting die is not clearly marked by some special moral quality.”

As Rachels puts it, “the line between killing and letting die is not clearly marked by some special moral quality.”

He goes on to describe several examples:

• A patient who has been given a lethal injection dies because his respirator has been removed. This could be considered a form of active euthanasia; however, if the patient had died naturally but without being able to breathe on his own (for example, due to an accident), then no one could blame us for removing the respirator from this case. In fact, this would be quite heroic!
• A patient who suffers from advanced dementia may want you to remove her feeding tube so she does not suffer anymore pain or discomfort as she slowly wastes away over time—but if we do so (and she dies), then perhaps we’ve done something wrong here? Or maybe not? It depends on how much control over her life—did they have autonomy over their body? Was there consent? It might be easier if someone else was making decisions about what happens next rather than us doctors thinking through all these complicated ethical issues ourselves…

(1) Allowing death is not morally different from killing.

The first question is whether allowing death is morally different from killing. According to Rachels, it cannot be because all actions produce consequences that are either good or bad. For example, if you push someone into a pool of water and they drown, then this action was not morally wrong because they died as a result (1). Similarly, if you give someone an overdose of medicine that causes them to die quickly and painlessly, this action was also not wrong since their death occurred as a result of taking too much medication (2). So in both cases there were no bad consequences associated with what happened—they just died differently than intended.

Rachels argues against allowing any sort of end-of-life decision by saying that we must always consider the value of life itself rather than any specific outcome related to dying (“Allowing” 1). He believes that letting go when your time has come causes more harm than allowing yourself another day or week because we do so without thinking about how much better things could have been for us if only we had done something else instead (“Allowing” 1). This argument does not hold up under scrutiny though; there are many cases where letting go would cause greater suffering than refusing medical interventions like CPR which only prolongs survival until death occurs naturally anyway (3).

(2) It is difficult to draw a line between active and passive killing.

It is difficult to draw a line between active and passive killing. This difficulty does not mean that we should simply allow assisted suicide. The fact that there is no clear distinction between active and passive killing does not mean we should allow assisted suicide, because it would be wrong for us to make such an exception.

In most cases where people are dying, they are in great pain and have little hope of recovery; however, their suffering can be reduced by giving them medication or other means of relief from their condition (euthanasia). However, this isn’t always an option: sometimes people suffer so much that even if all medical procedures were performed on them—and then some more—they still wouldn’t have any chance at life left whatsoever; in these cases euthanasia becomes necessary even though it means intentionally ending another person’s existence forever so he doesn’t hurt anymore!

(3) Intentionally allowing death is morally the same as intentionally killing because both involve killing someone!

If you kill someone, it is your fault and you should be held responsible for that death.

If you allow someone to die, it is also your fault and you should be held responsible for that death.

Intending death by removing a respirator equivalent to suffocating a patient with a pillow

If you’ve ever been at the bedside of someone who has died peacefully, you may have been confused by how this person could be dead yet still look alive. This is because there is no such thing as “dead” or “alive.” There are only living bodies with different levels of consciousness and functioning organs.

In order for a person to be considered dead, he or she must first lose all voluntary control over his/her body—which means that he/she cannot act against any natural impulse (such as breathing). The second requirement is that death must be instantaneous; otherwise it’s still alive in some sense (see below). So while we can’t say exactly what causes someone’s death any more than we can describe how they were born—that’s why doctors use phrases like “passed away” or “died” when talking about these situations—we can make some generalizations about them based upon their observable behavior after death occurs:

Conclusion

As Rachels puts it, “the line between killing and letting die is not clearly marked by some special moral quality.”