KARINA: Euthanasia weakens societys respect for the sanctity of life.

The
philosopher Immanuel Kant said that rational human beings should be
treated as an end in themselves and not as a means to something else. The
fact that we are human has value in itself.
Our inherent value doesn't depend on anything else - it doesn't depend on
whether we are having a good life that we enjoy, or whether we are making
other people's lives better. We exist, so we have value.
HUI: Most of humans agree with that - though we don't put it in philosopherspeak. We say that we don't think that we should use other people - which is
a plain English way of saying that we shouldn't treat other people as a
means to our own ends.

Euthanasia is an issue most politicians wouldnt touch with a

barge pole. And with good reason: Any argument on the subject
usually devolves into a series of complex, abstract questions about
morality and freedom of choice and so on. But while these ideas do
have their place in the debate, they usually serve only to eclipse the
other, better reasons we have for considering legalizationreasons
that involve evidence, lived experience, and hard statistics.

Legalizing the deliberate killing of humans (other than in legitimate selfdefence/war or possibly for the most heinous of crimes) fundamentally
undermines the basis of law and public morality.
People who support euthanasia often say that it is already considered
permissible to take human life under some circumstances such as self
defense - but they miss the point that when one kills for self defense they
are saving innocent life - either their own or someone else's. With
euthanasia no one's life is being saved - life is only taken.
Devalues some lives
Some people fear that allowing euthanasia sends the message, "it's better
to be dead than sick or disabled".
The subtext is that some lives are not worth living. Not only does this put
the sick or disabled at risk, it also downgrades their status as human beings
while they are alive. Some societies have regarded people with disabilities
as inferior, or as a burden on society. Those in favour of eugenics go further,
and say that society should prevent 'defective' people from having children.
Others go further still and say that those who are a burden on society should
be eliminated, which would be further promoted if euthanasia was legalised.
-6It Improves Quality Of Life
Most of us fear death, but a large part of that fear comes from uncertainty
and the worry that it might be preceded by agonizing pain (like a car wreck,

say). If we knew exactly when we were going to dieand knew for a fact it
would be painlessits a fair bet that fear would simply melt away. By
allowing people to choose the how and when of their death, were
guaranteeing theyll live what remaining life they have to the fullest, free
from the pain of anxiety. Dont believe me? Well, author Terry Pratchett was
diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimers and became a campaigner for
assisted dying. In his own words:
As I have said, I would like to die peacefully with Thomas Tallis on my iPod
before the disease takes me over and I hope that will not be for quite some
time to come, because if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then
suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I
could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice.
KARINA: Euthanasia is the start of slippery slope that leads to involuntary
euthanasia, people might be puched into saying they want euthanasia by
relatives who do not want to look after the them
HUI: Many people worry that if voluntary euthanasia were to become legal,
it would not be long before involuntary euthanasia would start to happen.
We were also concerned that vulnerable people - the elderly, lonely, sick or
distressed - would feel pressure, whether real or imagined, to request early
death.
This is called the slippery slope argument. In general form it says that if we
allow something relatively harmless today, we may start a trend that results
in something currently unthinkable becoming accepted.
If we change the law and accept voluntary euthanasia, we will not be able to
keep it under control. Doctors may soon start killing people without
bothering with their permission.
We all know that there is a huge difference between killing people who ask
for death under appropriate circumstances, and killing people without their
permission, but any doctor could ignore this distinction.
Health care costs will lead to doctors killing patients to save money or free
up beds, cost-conscious doctors are more likely to honour their patients'
requests for death.
KARINA: A 1998 study found that doctors who are cost-conscious and
'practice resource-conserving medicine' are significantly more likely to write
a lethal prescription for terminally-ill patients [Arch. Intern. Med., 5/11/98, p.
974]
This suggests that medical costs do influence doctors' opinions in this area
of medical ethics
9It Saves Lives
Not only does legalizing euthanasia not significantly shorten life, its been
proven to actually save lives. Dont believe me? Well, youve only got to look
to the Netherlands, where theyve had progressive laws on assisted dying
for over a decade now. In 2005, a study by the New England Journal of
Medicine found that only 0.4 percent of all euthanasia procedures were

carried out without the patients explicit permission. You might argue that
thats 0.4 percent too many, but get this: A 1991 reportwritten a decade
before euthanasia was legalizedput the number at 0.8 percent. In other
words, giving a nationwide go-ahead for doctors to legally end their
patients lives actually halved the number of unwanted deaths.
But hey, thats just Holland, right? They do things differently there. Doctors
in a less-hippie-liberal culture would never kill off patients without their
consent, right? Well think again. In Britain, a 2012 study discovered that as
many as 57,000 patients each year die without being told that efforts to
keep them alive have been stopped. Instead, theyre just shoved onto a
death pathway designed to alleviate suffering without ever being told. So
basically, doctors in the UK are already practicing euthanasiaonly without
any of the legal framework to check abuses that would come from legalizing
it.
Euthanasia exposes vulnerable people to pressure to end their lives. People
who are ill and dependent can often feel worthless and an undue burden on
those who love and care for them. They may actually be a burden, but those
who love them may be happy to bear that burden. Nonetheless, if
euthanasia is available, the sick person may pressure themselves into
asking for euthanasia.

Also it's possible that the family or others involved with the sick person may
regard them as a burden that they don't wish to carry, and may put pressure
(which may be very subtle) on the sick person to ask for euthanasia.
Increasing numbers of examples of the abuse or neglect of elderly people by
their families makes this an important issue to consider.
And the last type of pressure is the financial one, the last few months of a
patient's life are often the most expensive in terms of medical and other
care. Shortening this period through euthanasia could be seen as a way of
relieving pressure on scarce medical resources, or family finances.
5 It Wont Target The Vulnerable
One of the big myths about legalizing assisted dying is that it will lead to
pressure on the old, disabled, and infirm to end their lives. Its an
understandable fear and one we shouldnt take lightly: However, it also has
absolutely no basis in fact.
Take Oregon. In 1994, it became the first state in America to legalize
assisted dying, with the law going into effect in 1998. Ten years later, the
number of doctor-assisted suicides stood at 341not 341 per year, but 341
per decade. That works out at about 0.2 percent of all patient deathsa
number so tiny it hardly seems worth mentioning. In 2007, the Journal of
Medical Ethics analyzed the cases of every single patient whod opted for
the service and found poor, elderly, minority, or otherwise vulnerable
groups were represented as infrequently as everyone else. In other words,
the vulnerable were no more likely to receive assisted death than anyone

else, with the sole exception of young white menwho were the primary
users of the service. And if theres one group that doesnt need classifying
as vulnerable, its young white men.
2. Euthanasia can become a means of health care cost containment
With health care facilities caused to cut costs, euthanasia certainly could
become a means of cost containment. Thousands of people have no medical
insurance and the poor and minorities generally are not given access to
available pain control. With greater and greater emphasis being placed on
managed care, many doctors are at financial risk when they provide
treatment for their patients. Legalized euthanasia raises the potential for a
profoundly dangerous situation in which doctors could find themselves far
better off financially if a seriously ill or disabled person "chooses" to die
rather than receive long-term care.
Savings to the government may also become a consideration. This could
take place if governments cut back on paying for treatment and care and
replace them with the "treatment" of death. Hospital stays are being
shortened while, at the same time, funds have not been made available for
home care for the sick and elderly. Registered nurses are being replaced
with less expensive practical nurses. Patients are forced to endure long
waits for many types of needed surgery.
This is another of those arguments that says that euthanasia should not be
allowed because it will be abused. The fear is that if euthanasia is allowed,
vulnerable people will be put under pressure to end their lives. It would be
difficult, and possibly impossible, to stop people using persuasion or
coercion to get people to request euthanasia when they don't really want it.
It would fundamentally undermine the basis of trust between doctors and
patients that is at the heart of effective medicine. Far from being the
'ultimate expression of patient autonomy' legalized euthanasia becomes the
ultimate act of medical paternalism.

2It Wont Open The Floodgates

A final myth is that legalizing assisted dying will open the
floodgates, leading to a murder-happy world where life is cheap and
death is easy. But analysis of the data shows that this isnt the case.
Lets bounce back to the Netherlands for a moment: Every year,
roughly 3,000 Dutch people seek to be euthanized. That sounds like a
lot, until you realize it accounts for only 1.7 percent of all deaths. And
application is no guarantee of acceptance, either. Far from making
death cheap, the Netherlands system of assisted dying has made it
complex, bureaucratic, and very difficult to achieve. Around two-thirds
of patients who apply to be euthanized are refused; while euthanasia

itself remains a criminal act unless carried out by a qualified doctor

with the consent of a legal and an ethics expert. In short, getting your
doctor to relieve your suffering even in the liberal Netherlands is nighon impossiblehardly the sort of trigger-happy climate pundits would
have you believe it was.

Anti-euthanasia activists refer to the fact that countries which have

experimented with legalizing euthanasia have had issues with monitoring its
use. Due to inadequate laws, patients who have never expressed their
desire to die have been put to death in the name of voluntary euthanasia.
These cases, the opponents point out, prove that euthanasia will be a failed,
inhumane experiment, if adopted on a global scale.

10It Doesnt Shorten Life

One of the big arguments against euthanasia is that its irreversible: Once
the patient is gone, well never know if their unexpected recovery was just
around the corner, or if they might have gone on to lead full and happy lives
despite their illness. However, this argument ignores the data so hard it
basically punches reason in the face. The fact is, in all nations where
euthanasia is legal, its the near-exclusive preserve of the terminally ill. And,
despite what hopeful evangelicals and daytime dramas would have us
believe, terminal illness is usually exactly that: the final stop before death.
In 1991, a Dutch report into euthanasia found that in 86 percent of cases,
euthanasia shortened life by a maximum of a week and usually only a few
hours. In other words, it was a last resortan escape hatch used by patients
in unbearable agony who would rather that agony ended now than in two
days time.
Now, this isnt to say that miracle recoveries never happen: They
occasionally do. But the reason you hear about them is because theyre so
statistically improbable. For the vast majority of patients, such a recovery is
less likely than winning the lottery and getting struck by lightning in the
same afternoon.

9 . Against the will of God

Religious people don't argue that we can't kill ourselves, or get others to do
it. They know that we can do it because God has given us free will. Their
argument is that it would be wrong for us to do so. They believe that every
human being is the creation of God, and that this imposes certain limits on
us. Our lives are not only our lives for us to do with as we see fit. To kill
oneself, or to get someone else to do it for us, is to deny God, and to deny
God's rights over our lives and his right to choose the length of our lives and

the way our lives end.

Religious people sometimes argue against euthanasia because they see
positive value in suffering. However while the churches acknowledge that
some Christians will want to accept some suffering for this reason, most
Christians are not so heroic. So there is nothing wrong in trying to relieve
someone's suffering. In fact, Christians believe that it is a good to do so, as
long as one does not intentionally cause death.
It isn't easy to define suffering - most of us can decide when we are
suffering but what is suffering for one person may not be suffering for
another.
It's also impossible to measure suffering in any useful way, and it's
particularly hard to come up with any objective idea of what constitutes
unbearable suffering, since each individual will react to the same physical
and mental conditions in a different way.
Some people think that dying is just one of the tests that God sets for
human beings, and that the way we react to it shows the sort of person we
are, and how deep our faith and trust in God is. Others, while acknowledging
that a loving God doesn't set his creations such a horrible test, say that the
process of dying is the ultimate opportunity for human beings to develop
their souls. When people are dying they may be able, more than at any time
in their life, to concentrate on the important things in life, and to set aside
the present-day 'consumer culture', and their own ego and desire to control
the world.
Curtailing the process of dying would deny them this opportunity.
Some non-religious people also believe that suffering has value. They think
it provides an opportunity to grow in wisdom, character, and compassion.
Suffering is something, which draws upon all the resources of a human
being and enables them to reach the highest and noblest points of what
they really are. Suffering allows a person to be a good example to others by
showing how to behave when things are bad.

7It Makes Economic Sense

Most people would be shocked to think economics factored into
their life-or-death decisions, and rightly so. However, theres no
getting around how absurdly expensive end-of-life care is in America:
According to CNN, one in every four Medicare dollars spent goes to
the five percent of beneficiaries in the last year of their life. The
upshot of this is often crippling debt for the families of terminally ill
patients, with the care of a single individual at the end of their life
costing an estimated $39,000. For 40 percent of households, the bill
exceeds their financial assets.

This might be acceptable if end-of-life care was worth the money,

but its objectively not. Doctors will readily attest to the ability of
modern medicine to slightly prolong lifeat the cost of totally
destroying its quality. If you cant be bothered to read that last link, Ill
sum it up here: End-of-life care is often brutal, nasty, traumatic, and
very expensive, putting patients through long stretches of
unnecessary suffering just to give them an extra month or two. And
when the terminally ill patient undergoing these nasty, expensive
treatments has repeatedly insisted that theyd rather be dead, you
have to start wondering who all this expenditure is really benefiting.
If euthanasia were legalised, other interests such as economic ones could
interfere and influence a patient or doctor to undertake or prescribe
euthanasia. Furthermore, since doctors give patients the information on
which they will base their decisions about euthanasia, any legalisation of
euthanasia, no matter how strictly regulated, puts doctors in an
unacceptable position of power.
Doctors have been shown to take these decisions improperly, defying the
guidelines of the British Medical Association, the Resuscitation Council (UK),
and the Royal College of Nursing:
An Age Concern dossier in 2000 showed that doctors put Do Not
Resuscitate orders in place on elderly patients without consulting
them or their families
Do Not Resuscitate orders are more commonly used for older people
and, in the United States, for black people, alcohol misusers, nonEnglish speakers, and people infected with Human Immunodeficiency
Virus. This suggests that doctors have stereotypes of who is not worth
saving.
Moreover, Soraya Wernli, an ex-worker from Dignitas, an assisted dying
organisation in Switzerland, accused the organisation of being a "production
line of death concerned only with profits". Claiming too that some patients
died in pain

3The Alternatives Are Horrifying

When we think about death, most of us imagine passing serenely away
surrounded by our loved onesmaybe after having a slap-up meal and the
best sex of our lives. But death isnt like that. Death is usually slow, painful,
and undignified. And by refusing people the right to end their own lives,
were increasing that pain and indignity to a horrifying extent.
Meet Tony Nicklinson. In 2010 and again in 2012, his bid to die was rejected
by the British High Court. As a sufferer of locked in syndrome, Tony was
incapable of moving a single muscle in his bodya condition he described
as a living nightmare. Unable to do the job himself and unable to ask
anyone to do it for him, Tony followed the only course of action available: He
starved himself to death. After a week without food, he died in indignity

and misery from pneumonia.

But Nicklinson isnt the only one: Kelly Taylor was in so much pain she
starved herself for 19 days before realizing her only suicide route was even
worse than her living hell and began eating again. So, for many people, the
choice they now face is unimaginable agony for years on end, or even-worse
unimaginable agony for the time it takes to starve. Great.