This essay will include an exposition of James Rachel’s article "The morality of Euthanasia", as well as a critical analysis which follows. Euthanasia is a very controversial topic within society with a variety of diverse opinions.
The definition for euthanasia is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, is “The painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma”. In the article Rachels inspects the arguments for and against Euthanasia based on the “standard case of Euthanasia” which is that of terminally ill person. Terminally ill is defined as “A status assigned to a person who has been diagnosed with an illness and is expected to die within a certain time frame, usually six months.”
The overall purpose of Rachel’s article is to defend the use of active Euthanasia because it’s an act of mercy, which Rachel believes is justified to escape pain. The main example Rachel uses is someone dying from cancer. Ultimately, he argues, if a terminally ill person asks to die as an escape from their pain, then how is it immoral to help them? This patient is guaranteed to die relatively
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The first is active euthanasia, this is where the subject is directly killed as a result of something external entering the body, often by way of lethal injection. This way of euthanasia is considered morally wrong by the majority of people because it’s regarded as killing. Passive euthanasia is another where a person is allowing someone to die via their ailment rather than an external factor, by removing their life support which maintains their life or failing to provide the support system. Thirdly there is Doctor assisted suicide, this is where a person kills themselves with the assistance of a medical professional, the patient is the person who ultimately kills themselves rather than the Doctor, drug overdoses are common in this