Right to Die

[Rapier]

1 hour ago, expshare said:

I don't think people should only be given the option of a peaceful controlled death when they are surely going to die from their disease. What if someone has a 99% chance of dying from their disease? Must they continue to live until the last hopeless moment, or should they be given control over their own fate? What if someone doesn't want to grow to become crippled? Just because the medical technology is improving every year doesn't mean everyone should be tied to the train tracks of living out every second of their potential longevity. Life is not infinitely valuable. Sometimes it can have negative value to the person living it. 

I don't think it's so easy for the other side to comply with someone's death wish like that. Like, I can't think of any good argument for why a person shouldn't have autonomy for choosing their own fate (save for some cases on which a person is not currently thinking straight and wouldn't pick a radical choice otherwise), but imagine yourself being the one told to cut off the life support and see a person who you've treated before die. I don't mean to make an appeal to emotion, but point out to how questionable and disturbing it is when we are essentially the ones pulling the trigger. For cases that can't be recovered from, it could be interpreted as a mercy kill. For cases that can be recovered from, but you're essentially aborting (please don't mistake this with abortion on terminology alone please) a treatment? Making a judgment is more obscure.

It's also very hard to draw a line regarding allowing euthanasia for a person who doesn't want to grow to become crippled. Vegetative state notwithstanding. I think it is a fallacious argument to say that because we can't draw a line, we also can't recognize the extremes and act upon them (thus I'll avoid bringing this down to it), but you'd have to worry about making this work out in practice and convince people that allowing euthanasia for crippled people on X cases is ok but on Y cases isn't. This is far from a simple matter.

[expshare]

1 hour ago, eclipse said:

Just which side are you arguing?

The right to die for those who are terminally ill or those of sufficient ill health.

1 hour ago, Rapier said:

I don't think it's so easy for the other side to comply with someone's death wish like that. Like, I can't think of any good argument for why a person shouldn't have autonomy for choosing their own fate (save for some cases on which a person is not currently thinking straight and wouldn't pick a radical choice otherwise), but imagine yourself being the one told to cut off the life support and see a person who you've treated before die. I don't mean to make an appeal to emotion, but point out to how questionable and disturbing it is when we are essentially the ones pulling the trigger. For cases that can't be recovered from, it could be interpreted as a mercy kill. For cases that can be recovered from, but you're essentially aborting (please don't mistake this with abortion on terminology alone please) a treatment? Making a judgment is more obscure.

It's also very hard to draw a line regarding allowing euthanasia for a person who doesn't want to grow to become crippled. Vegetative state notwithstanding. I think it is a fallacious argument to say that because we can't draw a line, we also can't recognize the extremes and act upon them (thus I'll avoid bringing this down to it), but you'd have to worry about making this work out in practice and convince people that allowing euthanasia for crippled people on X cases is ok but on Y cases isn't. This is far from a simple matter.

First paragraph - I agree, and I don't think anyone should be forced into helping people carry out their suicide. I think the job of helping to facilitate a death should be given to those who specifically agree to it. The way it would work is the doctor would set up the means of suicide for the patient, but would leave the actual "pulling of the lever" to the patient themselves. For example, the patient might be given a lethal pill to take, or they might be hooked to a machine that will inject poison when the patient interfaces with the machine to begin the process.

Second paragraph - It's definitely not a simple matter. I think a combination of laws and patient/doctor discretion would probably be best to regulate the process of euthanasia. There might be some disagreeable outcomes if euthanasia is legalized, but the hope is that such outcomes would be less common and less disagreeable than the situation currently is, wherein patients have to die of natural causes. 

Edited August 12, 2018 by expshare

[eclipse]

2 minutes ago, expshare said:

The right to die for those who are terminally ill or those of sufficient ill health.

That's the topic.  But which side of the debate are you on?

[expshare]

I support the right to die for those who are terminally ill or of sufficient ill health. I'm not going to deny that it will make unintentional suicide rates go up a tiny bit, but it's a price that's worth it to give peace and control to a greater number of people. Lowering suicide rates has to be done in other ways, such as by de-stigmatizing mental illness, providing greater access to healthcare, and teaching compassion and understanding in schools.

Edited August 22, 2018 by expshare

[The_antithesis]

I'm very much on the fence with euthanasia. On the one hand, it prevents suffering, which is good. On the other hand, though, it does lead to a problem of "where do you draw the line?" There is some merit to having a simple legal system, as it's easier for people to follow it. Additionally, there is a question of what counts as "terminal" or not. If a person has a debilitating non-terminal illness, they may see the fact that some people can get euthanasia but they can't as unfair, while denying euthanasia to everyone is at least consistent. Finally, there's the issue of forged consent, where a murderer could be able to claim they were carrying out a euthanasia (this is especially bad as the burden of proof is always on the prosecution!)

TL;DR- I think it's a good idea, but there could be serious legal headaches with actually enforcing it.