Active euthanasia is a necessary course of action and should be allowed as long as the decision is being made by the family members or the patient themselves. The American Medical Association claims active euthanasia is against it's policy, but improving the quality of life for a patient is, so what happens if the patients life could be made better by ending it?
             In a statement by the American Medical Association, they claim "the intentional termination of the life of one human being by another mercy killing-is contrary to that for which the medical profession stands and is contrary to the policy of the American Medical Association." The American Medical Association's policy is to save lives and in saving those lives raise the quality of them. But in a case where active euthanasia would be employed the quality of life for the patient would be horrible whether kept alive or left to die on there own.
             The example James Rachel's gives states 'a patient who is dying of incurable cancer of the throat is in terrible pain, which can no longer be satisfactorily alleviated. He is certain to die within a few days, even if present treatment is continued, but he does not want to go on living for those days since the pain is unbearable. So he asks the doctor for an end to it, and his family joins in the request." Rachel's goes on to explain that even if the doctor agrees to withhold treatment, "as the conventional doctrine says he may." Simply withholding treatment may make the patient live longer and he would suffer longer than if direct action had been taken, such as a lethal injection.
             The American Medical Association is being hypocritical in their pursuit to save lives and raise the quality of them. How can they say they are doing this if the person they are "saving" spends the last week of their lives coughing up blood, chocking on a feed
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