Research Essay Sample on Euthanasia

Euthanasia is the act of ending one’s life, by action or inaction, who is terminally ill in the interest of limiting the pain the patient will experience. In the United States, there is a policy of passive euthanasia meaning that patients who are euthanized are not actively killed by their caretakers, but instead, they are allowed to succumb to their terminal disease so that they are not overly medicated and continue a hopeless existence. Many believe; however, that the practice of passive euthanasia is cruel compared to the practice of active euthanasia which would more quickly end a patient’s life. James Rachels is one outspoken thinker on this issue, and his perspective is that there is no moral difference between the two. His argument hinges on four points, those being that active euthanasia can be more humane than passive euthanasia, that the current passive euthanasia doctrine leads to decisions whose grounds are irrelevant to issues of life and death, that there is no moral difference between killing and allowing to die, and that most common arguments in favor of passive over active euthanasia are invalid.

To defend his first point, Rachels poses a scenario in which it would be more humane for active euthanasia to take place instead of passive euthanasia. In this scenario, he describes a patient who is in his final days due to throat cancer. The pain is no longer able to be alleviated and this causes the patient to be in a tremendous amount of pain, so wishing to not spend his last days in this state he and his family ask his doctor to end his life. Under current doctrine, the doctor would withhold treatment from the patient until he succumbs to his cancer over the next several days; however, this would still cause the patient to experience an excruciating amount of pain over the coming days. If instead, the doctor injected the patient with a lethal dose their pain would end much sooner allowing them peace. Rachels argues that because it is doctors’ mission to treat their patients while limiting their pain, in this scenario because the patient is hopelessly ill the doctor would be saving their patient additional pain by prematurely ending his life instead of allowing him to naturally die a painful death.

To defend his second point, Rachels poses another scenario that exposes how some issues which are irrelevant to life and death are involved in the current euthanasia doctrine. Rachels tells of a scenario where some infants are born with down syndrome and only some of them are also born with intestinal obstructions. Those babies who have down syndrome but not the intestinal obstruction go on to live relatively healthy infancies; however, in some cases of those with intestinal obstructions in addition to down syndrome parents and doctors refuse to operate on the child, instead of allowing it to starve and wither to death over the course of several days. Rachels then argues that this choice is not made on the grounds that the intestinal obstruction is a problem as the procedure to remove such an ailment is a relatively easy one without lasting consequences, but instead that the decision to allow this baby to wither and die is determined by the fact that they have down syndrome. The parents of this child with down syndrome and an intestinal obstruction believe that because their child has down syndrome they will have a lower quality of life and thus they allow it to starve to death using its intestinal obstruction as an excuse. This makes the fact that a child has an intestinal obstruction irrelevant to the case of euthanasia as, if it were legal, many parents of children with down syndrome and no intestinal problems would choose to actively euthanize their child due to them believing it has a lower quality of life compared to death due to its condition. In addition, Rachels does not argue whether euthanasia is right or wrong in this case, rather he states that regardless of one’s position on euthanasia as a whole, we can all agree that instead of allowing an infant to wither over several days doctors should be allowed to lethally inject them preventing these babies from having to endure an agonizing death.

Rachels’ third point is that there is no moral difference between letting die and killing, and to illustrate this point he once again poses another hypothetical scenario. Rachels writes of two men Smith and Jones who are cousins of a six-year-old boy who is the only thing standing in the way of them receiving a large inheritance. Both men plan on murdering their cousin in order to collect their hefty inheritance; however, their scenarios play out differently. Smith drowns the boy while he is taking a bath and makes it look as if it has happened by accident. Jones plans on drowning the boy while he is taking a bath, but as soon as he enters the boy hits his head and drowns in the water all by himself, while Jones watches ready to push his head back under if the six-year-old comes to. In this scenario, all factors are kept the same except for the fact that Smith killed the child whereas Jones allowed the child to die. Rachels argues that morally both men are equally bad as they both had the same intent and result regardless of their physical actions. He then translates this logic to the medical field where doctors, instead of acting for personal gain try to alleviate their patients’ pain, should not be morally hung up on the fact that they are killing their patients versus letting them die as morally they are the same.

Rachels’ final argument is a rebuttal against common arguments against active euthanasia. One such argument is that in active euthanasia the doctor actively kills their patient while in passive euthanasia their patient is killed by their disease. Rachels believes that by the doctor letting their patient succumb to their disease the doctor is actively doing something. He argues that inaction in itself is still an action as it requires restraint to stop treating a patient which a doctor would normally do in a scenario where their patient was sick. Rachels concludes his paper by saying that while doctors may believe that moral issues such as active versus passive euthanasia are issues for philosophers like himself, he believes that doctors should take part in this debate and question why their current euthanasia policy has been shown to be, in cases, immoral.

One way in which I believe Rachels could improve his argument; however, is to include the fact that in the United States it is common for one to get their pets actively euthanized as it is seen as a more merciful way to let them die. We should ask why, if active euthanasia is a morally wrong practice, do we go out of our way to actively euthanize our pets when instead we could let them die for no cost at all. The answer to this question is that active euthanasia is not a morally wrong practice and is instead more morally correct than passive euthanasia as it saves animals additional pain incurred due to their diseases. We should therefore find it unacceptable that our pets are treated better than we humans when it comes to matters of euthanasia and therefore we should promote active euthanasia for humans.

Despite this additional note, I agree with Rachels’ argument entirely. Before reading his essay I was only in favor of active euthanasia if it was consented to by the patient or if they are incapacitated, their family; however, Rachels’ line of reasoning showed me that active euthanasia is the more humane method for terminally ill patients. It was genius how Rachels isolated the problem to the morality of active versus passive euthanasia as this allowed him to ignore any refutations from those arguing against the morality of euthanasia entirely as well as helping him clearly define the purpose of euthanasia in general, which is to alleviate the suffering of hopelessly ill patients. I also found his argument surrounding the moral distinction between killing and letting die very convincing as it again presents the question in a scientific way where he created two isolated scenarios differentiated by only one factor and then analyzed said factor’s impact on determining the morality of said scenario. More than any author that we have previously read in class, I found Rachels’ argument formulation to be extremely dense while also brief and straightforward further convincing me of its validity. In short, Rachels’ argument for the moral acceptability of active euthanasia is a successful one.