Killing someone is morally equivalent to letting them die.

I actually agree, but I'll just argue against you. My case: Imagine these situations. A) Your friend Billy and you are driving down I-95 (Yeah East Coast!), and a tractor trailer rams your car. The car goes flying off the road, and into the median. Billy has a punctured lung, a hole in his neck, a fractured skull, and has lost his arm. He will die within a few minutes, but at this moment he is screaming in intense pain. You are basically okay. You have a shard of glass in your hand that you can use to kill him quickly and end the suffering for Billy. As my opponent agreed, the ends justify the means. The ends of killing Billy would be saving him from a few minutes of intense physical and emotional pain, so it is the moral action. You must kill Billy, as letting him die would be making him suffer needlessly. B) Your dear old Grandma is within days of dying of cancer. In this hypothetical situation, euthanasia is legal. She declines to be euthanized, and asks to be allowed to die naturally. Euthanizing her would result in the same end, her death, but it would be violating her right to live a few more days to say good bye. If killing her and letting her die were equivalent, then this would not be an issue. Unfortunately, in this case, it is immoral to kill her, while it is moral to let her die. C) Stephen has a genetic disorder that will painlessly kill him at age 20. It will not affect him in any other way. It would be immoral to kill him because you deprive him of twenty happy years of life before his painless death. Obviously killing and letting die are not equivalent. "Scenarios: a) Bob is babysitting his little cousin, who he doesn't particularly care for. While the child is leaning out the back window, looking for his toy that fell, the child starts to lose balance. Bob pushes him out the window, causing him to fall on his head and die. [Action] b) Bob is babysitting his little cousin, who he doesn't particularly care for. While the child is leaning out the back window, looking for his toy that fell, the child starts to lose balance. Bob watches, presuming (correctly) that he will fall on his head and die. [Inaction] Guidelines: 1) Please argue based upon the provided scenario, so semantics and misinterpretations can be avoided. 2) Bob does NOT know beforehand that the child will die. However, he knows that if the child loses balance, the child will fall out the window. He knows that if the child falls out the window, the result will be death. He also knows that it is entirely possible to save the child. Contention: In each scenario, Bob has three options: prevent the child from losing balance (saving the child), push the child out the window (killing the child), or let the child fall out the window (letting the child die). We know that in the case of morals, "the ends justify the means", so your decisions are justified by the outcome. It is obvious that saving the child and killing him are moral opposites, since one results in a life preserved, while the other results in a life taken. However, letting the child die also results in a life taken. The difference is that one is active, while one is passive. But the nature of the decision does not matter when pertaining to morals; it is the outcome that matters. Since killing the child and letting the child die both lead to the same result, they are morally equivalent. Here is my contention in syllogistic form:" I object to the guideline limiting the resolution to this one scenario. I in fact agree that in that scenario they are the same. However, privately he and I have agreed to not limit it to this scenario. In this situation the ends are the same, but in the three situations above, the ends are different. The actions are therefore not equivalent. I win.