In the article "Active and Passive Euthanasia," by James Rachels, he challenges the distinction between active and passive euthanasia. In his opinion active euthanasia is not any worse than passive euthanasia. The idea accepted by most doctors is that in some cases passive euthanasia is morally permissible, and active euthanasia is never morally permissible. This comes from the doctrine endorsed by the American Medical Association. Given the arguments that Rachel's makes I agree that both active and passive euthanasia are very similar and should be equally morally permissible. In Rachel's first argument he points out that sometimes active euthanasia should be preferred to prevent pain and suffering. His example was a patient that is dying from cancer. The pain and suffering was too unbearable for the patient so he asked the doctor to end life. If the doctor withholds treatment like the conventional doctrine allows, than the patient will pursue in pain and agony until he dies. However, going without treatment doesn't result in immediate death, and could still be a long time suffering. Rachel's gives another example of a defective newborn who they also stop giving treatment. This time they refuse to give him the necessary surgery to save his life. By doing this the baby dies naturally through dehydration. In the slow process of death the baby cries and suffers as it dwindles away. In these cases Rachels argues that it might be preferred to pursue active euthanasia . His second argument states that in the doctrine the decisions dealing with life and death are made on irrelevant grounds. He uses two similar cases to demonstrate this argument. The first case is of a man named Smith who kills a boy in the bathtub in order to inherit money. The second case is of a man named Jones who wants to kill the boy in order to inherit his money. However, in the second case finds that the boy is already drowning. Jones stands back and does nothing to s