ABSTRACT
The principle of avoiding killing is one of the duty-based principle. This chapter shows some basic distinctions in death and dying. One of the distinction is the difference between actively killing the patient, on the one hand, and simply allowing the patient to die by forgoing treatment, on the other. It is sometimes argued that active killing is illegal in almost all jurisdictions while letting die is legal everywhere, at least under some conditions. The Remmelink commission, a governmental commission found that, of the total of 3724 actions by physicians to provide medical assistance in actively ending life, only 486 were reported as required on death certificates. The ethics of physician assistance in suicide is now four-square on the agenda for moral and public policy debate. Surely, some omissions that lead to death are morally wrong as well. Someone who had an affirmative duty to save a life and failed to do so would have violated some moral principle.
