ABSTRACT
The malignancy was discovered in August of 1973. The disease was already so far advanced that surgery was ruled out. Passive euthanasia—the refusal or withdrawal of extraordinary means of treatment such as life support systems for the terminally ill—enjoys almost universal acceptance among moral theorists. James Rachels applies a similar kind of analysis to voluntary active euthanasia and argues that its moral legitimacy cannot be assessed properly without taking into consideration motive or intention. A secular variant of the preceding religious argument against voluntary active euthanasia is that such a practice is "unnatural" because it runs counter to our primal instinct for survival. The easy availability of euthanasia might slowly but surely undermine our sense of moral obligation to care for the incurably and terminally ill. Physician-assisted suicide differs from euthanasia in that, instead of direct killing through, say, lethal injection, doctors supply patients with a lethal amount of drugs which the patients themselves injection.
