Killing vs. Letting Die

Killing vs. Letting Die

There's been quite a controversy in the topic of "killing" and "letting someone die". Just by the word "kill", many will say it's worse to kill a person, for example shooting them than allowing a person to die by say, not providing them with medicine. With this said, this just simply means that it it worse to harm a human being than letting harm happen to them. It's quite hard to weigh which is wrong or which is morally right. It really depends and varies on the situation we're talking about.

According to Holly Smith Goldman, "death is not always an evil to the person who dies. If the continuation of that person's life would have been a good to her, then dead is indeed an evil. But if the continuation of her life would have been an evil, then death for her is a good." With that said, this falls in the category of people who are in excruciating pain due to illness. For example, my grandmother from the Philippines, recently passed away from bone cancer. Throughout her fight with the cancer, she suffered through pain I can't even imagine. Although everyone did their possible best to give her the best care, eventually even with medications, she still suffered greatly. Eventually, the best decision for her was to stop giving her medications. In my opinion, she's been through hell with cancer and I feel that by stopping her medications, this still prolonged her life but also doubled the amount of pain she was in. In this sense, was letting her die better than killing? These two things are not much different in a moral sense. As I mentioned, in some cases where killing will actually set and free the patient, it may be necessary. Most of us will never kill a human being, because that's just against our human nature. I still do believe that most of us will seek the best care for others. Although we may not kill people, we can't always provide the necessary needs for others. Lawrence Becker said, " we allow people to die, when we fail to contribute money to famine-relief efforts; but even if we feel somewhat guilty, we do not consider ourselves murderers. Nor do we feel like accessories to murder when we fail to give blood, sign an organ-donor card, or do any of the other things that could save lives." We may not think of these things because when we think of killing or letting someone die, think of it literally and what we see as obvious. For example, if two siblings have the intention of killing their rich uncle, only one of them actually kills him. The other brother didn't physically cause his death, but his intention was still there. In this case, I believe that they are morally wrong.