Argument 1 - Passive Euthanasia

Passive euthanasia is morally acceptable and should be made legal. This form of euthanasia is when life support, such as feeding tubes and respirators, are withdrawn or omitted. The patient is fully competent and aware of these actions and chooses to be taken off of artificial means of survival. This method is moral in the sense that it doesn’t involve killing, it is merely “letting die”. While this might sound unacceptable, all it is doing is allowing the terminal illness or disease to take its natural course. The Vatican claims that “disproportionate” means should not be taken to keep a body living, but they insist that feeding tubes and the like are “proportionate” and therefore must be used. However, when a patient is totally dependent upon respirators and artificial nourishment, this places a heavy mental, physical, and financial burden on them and their family members. If the means of survival are essentially the only things keeping them alive when they’ve lost control of body functions and other physical capabilities, when they’ve suffered immense pain and succumbed to incurable disease, the life support is futile. It may keep their body alive, but their spirit, will, and reason to live have all diminished. The Vatican should re-evaluate what they consider to be the “heavy burdens” that distinguish between proportionate and disproportionate methods of survival. For these reasons, passive euthanasia is morally acceptable.

It should also be legal because it is not injecting or prescribing lethal doses of medication to cause death. It does not put doctors at risk with the Drug Enforcement Association for providing lethal medication nor does it incriminate them for “murdering” a patient. They are just listening to the consent of the patient. In the absence of advance directives, which are documents or health care proxies that inform the doctor what the patient wants in terms of treatment and survival means, many claim that the doctor should keep the patient “alive” at all costs. If the patient has a living will that calls for no artificial means of survival, it is not considered wrong when they are taken off of life support and left to handle whatever natural direction the disease takes. But if the patient is without a living will, this same request to be taken off of artificial means of life is viewed as suicide and is therefore deemed unacceptable. In reality, the living will is no different from a competent patient’s request, and therefore passive euthanasia should be legal.