The medical profession has attempted to draw an ethical distinction between "passive" and "active" euthanasia. The argument being that, although giving a patient a drug, or in some other way causing or hastening their death is entirely unethical, allowing a patient to die by withholding treatment and/or nutrition is morally acceptable. The criteria by which the determination is made to bring about a patient's death appears to mostly be age related, using the "quality of life" argument that at their age, treatment would only prolong what, in the doctor's opinion, would be a few more years of...well, of being old, I guess. I am still unable to