by James F. Bresnahan

About the author: James F. Bresnahan is a professor in the Medicine Department of Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago.

Fundamental to the Roman Catholic moral theological tradition is a distinction we make in the practice of medical care of the dying. Many others who are neither Catholic, Christian nor religious also make it. We distinguish between killing and letting die. We consider it morally permitted—even, under certain circumstances, morally required—that at a patient’s request we let the person die of lethal disease processes by foregoing cure-oriented treatments while continuing to provide relief of suffering in ways needed and wanted by the dying patient. But we consider it morally forbidden to initiate deliberately a new lethal process consciously intended to precipitate death, whether this is...