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The patient requesting euthanasia may not be in the same frame of mind as when they agreed to end their life before they lost their communication, but there is no going back. The patient might also be in a bad mood because of their illness, or not be mentally sane and request euthanasia, when if they were thinking clearly they would not want it.
The term “allowed to die with dignity” means that voluntary euthanasia can allow a person to die free from pain, humiliation, and fear, and at peace with themselves and their family. I agree with this as surely it is more humane to give someone lethal drugs that will kill them quickly, painlessly, and peacefully than to allow them to die in slow, tortuous agony. It is a doctors duty to cure or save someone from an illness, what if the only way to do that was to kill them before the illness did, knowing that euthanising them was far better than what the illness had in store for them. That is surely the right thing to do.
One possible danger of legalising voluntary euthanasia is that it could mean the law has knock-on effects, or descend down a ‘slippery moral slope’. This means that if it were allowed it could become commonplace which in turn could make our value of life decrease. If this were to happen, doctors might be in the position to suggest euthanasia to people rather than only accepting a request in the most dire situations if the doctor is stressed for example. In these kinds of situation euthanasia is more like murder than ever, but a society with legal euthanasia may not see it that way. However, the Netherlands has legalised voluntary euthanasia and as yet the law has not had knock-on effects, which could mean that the slippery slope argument does not necessarily apply here.
A benefit of voluntary Euthanasia is there is no waste of resources on people who don’t want to be kept alive. If someone’s quality of life is so low that it couldn’t be called living, and the person doesn’t want to experience anymore pain or discomfort, then should the sparse resourses be used on them? What if someone who needed these resources and who wanted to live died because they were used up on someone who didn’t want them.
nice one, we’ll talk more about what philosophers think about this today
nice one oli, do you think this is a good reason against voluntary euthanasia
A danger of Voluntary Euthanasia is that when people make the decision to end their lives, they may be at a ‘low point’ of their illness which would make them want to end their life. When ending their life, they will have lost all power to communicate they may of had a change of heart and not want to die anymore. This could be a danger as if the person who does no longer want to die, dies, it could be classed as murder and against the persons will.
A benefit of legalising voluntary euthanasia is that the people who help someone to die, relatives or doctors for example, would not face prosecution, as they would now, for helping a person to die. Surely this is a good thing, as you would not have to fear being prosecuted, and possibly imprisoned, for respecting someones wishes, and helping them die. This means that doctors could carry out euthansia for people, without fear of losing their license etc. It also means that people who want to be euthanised will not have to worry about the people who help them being prosecuted, and maybe imprisoned, for helping them.
Legalising euthanasia can devalue life as society may start to think that each person’s life is not so important if they can choose when and how to end it themselves. Life is precious and some believe that unnatural death being a choice devalues human life. On the other hand others believe that it would be valuing life as euthanasia is helping people who are suffering.
This says that lots of what we do is not natural like euthansaia. But this arguement does not stand for long because if we acted naturally we would behave like animals and go around killing things necause that is in our nature we stemmed for hunter killers . This also gets shot down because most of modern medicine is not natural.
Prevents horrific suicide attempts is an effective argument because suicide would cause more suffering to more people and can make physical and mental pain worse.
A disadvantage of voluntary euthanasia is that if it becomes more commonly done, it devaluates life. This means that when people get sick, they know that whenever they want, they can end their life. This means that people will be able to make the decision to die more easily, because if it happened more often in the world, people wouldn’t see life as a precious gift but as something you can throw away as soon as life gets hard.
If people are really desperate to die and doctors refuse to help them to die, people may ask relatives to help them die. This puts family and friends in a horrible position which might cause them to go to jail. if doctors are able to help people to die, no one will go to jail and it will stopped ‘botched jobs’ which means if it goes wrong when a family member tries to kill them and they fail it could cause the patient more pain
Currently if you try to help someone with Euthanasia you will be prosecuted and sent to prison if it can be proved that you help. If it were legal to commit euthanasia people would be able to help family members and patients to die with dignity without the risk of prosecution. Doctors cannot help people they know will be living in pain and suffering constantly.