Should the US Legalize Euthanasia / Physician-Assisted Suicide?

Started by Kohai ·

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In recent years several states have passed right to die bills that allow patients to end their own life. Some say that this gives patients more power and say over how their lives end while others state that it is a dangerous slippery slope.

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For 56% · 5 Undecided 11% · 1 Against 33% · 3

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Arguments for (1)

Savant

We already give people the right to reduce the amount of time they are conscious

We already allow people the right to be unconscious during an otherwise painful medical procedure. Euthanizing someone who is in permanent suffering is effectively just a scaled up version of this. If someone prefers being unconscious to suffering from some level of pain, then euthanasia is effectively the same thing, just on a longer time horizon. Since there's not effectively a difference between death and being rendered unconscious for the rest of your life.

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Arguments against (2)

SavantEdited

Often leads to euthanizing individuals who cannot consent

I don't think the slippery slope would necessarily lead to something as extreme as the Holocaust assuming the motives behind it are actually compassionate. That said, I think we have a tendency to overestimate the likelihood that someone in suffering would want to end their own life, and people are often euthanized without explicit consent, such as a disabled toddler. For example, surrogates frequently misjudge or overestimate a patient's desire to withdraw life-sustaining treatment. Many people imagine they would rather die than be 99% paralyzed, but most locked-in patients are happy. So if this gets to the point of euthanizing young children because we assume they would want to die, or euthanizing mentally disabled people who cannot explicitly consent, I don't have confidence we would be able to represent their actual interests. There's a difference between "I think I would want to die in x, y, z scenario" and "I have good reason to believe this person would want to die." I think equivocating between these is the typical mind fallacy.

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SomeDebatePersonEdited

It is still murder

The person who is euthanized committed no crime. The law does not give you the right to take your own life.


Since suicide is a crime, the ideal punishment would be to let the person live.

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SavantEdited

If the law didn't give them the right to end their own life, then technically they did commit a crime.

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SomeDebatePerson

But then you would punishing them in with what they deserve: to live. The opposite of capital punishment. Those who attempt suicide deserve the punishment of life.

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