3. The Moral Distinction between Passive and Active Euthanasia
At the center of the distinction between killing (active euthanasia) and allowing to die, (passive euthanasia) is the difference between physical causality and moral culpability. On the one hand, to bring the life of another to an end by an injection is to directly kill the other--our action is the physical cause of death. On the other hand, to …show more content…
There is a direct coherence between respecting people’s self-made choices and the need for competence, simply because competence is presupposed by autonomy. It is ingrained in the very nature of humanity, the desire to be able to make important decisions concerning oneself with respect to one’s own conception of how life should be. In practising self-determination, or autonomy, people feel responsible for their own lives; and because dying is an aspect of life, choices about the way people die and when this death occurs, for many persons, are part of feeling responsible for their ways of life. The anxiety over how good or bad the last phase of someone’s life might be is not only because of the fear that dying is likely to cause them terrible pain or suffering, it is also because of the innate desire to retain one’s dignity, and exercise control over their lives as much as possible during this critical phase. Another argument supporting voluntary euthanasia is the utmost importance of furthering the well-being of people. When someone suffers from excruciating pain or has the only option of a life that is inadmissibly onerous, and he consciously and competently asks to be medically assisted with passing away, his well-being, at that instant, is best furthered by providing him that assistance. Thus, the integral morals at the bottom of voluntary euthanasia, namely, the being's self-government and well-being, are working