Voluntary Active Euthanasia Research Paper

Voluntary active euthanasia and Physician assisted suicide, is there no morally relevant difference? Some may say there is no morally relevant distinction between voluntary active euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. Voluntary active euthanasia requires the involvement of the physician in the act itself; whereas physician assisted suicide requires the physician to prescribe the medication that the patient can later take to kill him or herself.
Brock states that in both cases, the decision rests fully with the patient. The patient is the one acting last, maintaining the right to change their mind until the point where it becomes irreversible. He states that some view that there is a moral difference, that in euthanasia the physician kills …show more content…
Brock argues that the physician is equally complicit in voluntary active euthanasia and physician assisted suicide, and that there is no morally relevant difference. Without the physician’s involvement, the patient would not die. Brock claims that one should not be preoccupied by who physically administers the medication, but our concern should be who acts last in exercising the agent, who is making the last decision (Brock 10). The patient is acting last, directing the course of action and maintains the right to change his mind up until the point where the process is irreversible (Brock p. 10). At no point with the two, does the physician make the patients choice for him. The physician does not make the initial decision to provide the lethal dose of medication; the patient makes the first decision when he seeks out the physician. In both cases, the physician and patient are working together to accomplish one thing, death of the patient. However, there are distinguishable differences between the two.
Physician assisted suicide requires the physician to make lethal means available to the patient to be used at a time of the patient’s own choosing (Brock 10). Voluntary active