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Euthanasia should be legalized

It has been a very interesting and thoughtful debate. 1. Immoral First, I think we both understand that immoral actions should be legal, and moral actions should be. My opponent gave his way of determining the morality of actions by the Harm Principle. This is a consequentialist theory because you judge the morality of an action based on its consequences; However, this is not a good way to determine right and wrong. This is because you can never know the full consequences of an action. A small action today could lead to major actions later, this is known as the butterfly effect. "The butterfly effect is the sensitive dependency on initial conditions in which a small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state." [1] What an action is today a small "harmless" action could lead to world peace, or it could also lead to World War III you can never know. An example would be if a grandparent chooses euthanasia, but then the grandchild suffers extreme emotional pain due to the loss. I would say this caused harm, and by your standard it is immoral and should not be allowed. You can never know what will come of those actions so you can't say it is morally acceptable. Irving Kristol's argument isn't too strong, and human nature changes. 50 years ago Homosexuality was not accepted at all, but we change, for better or worse. Well those examples should be your moral values since the argument is X should be legal since it does not harm anyone else. You can fill in anyone of those for X and it would work, but you then agree there are limits which you say is because "this ignored common sense, and popular judgement." I don't know why popular opinion has to do with it and that is a logical fallacy. [2] Overall your argument is X should not be legal because it ignores common sense and popular judgement, but common sense is subjective and to prove this we both believe it is common sense to support our positions when it would be impossible to hold both to be true. In conclusion, you have not proven that euthanasia is morally permissible by the standard you set, and you hold moral views contradictory to your own standard. 2. Subjectivity My opponent assumes that pain is a prerequisite to euthanasia, but not according to the Oregon Death with Dignity act which states "An adult who is capable, is a resident of Oregon, and has been determined by the attending physician and consulting physician to be suffering from a terminal disease, and who has voluntarily expressed his or her wish to die, may make a written request for medication for the purpose of ending his or her life in a humane and dignified manner" [3]. Pain isn't mentioned, and having a terminal illness does not necessarily mean they are suffering from any mental or emotional pain. I also have a problem with family approval. You Always say it is a personal decision, but making it need approval takes that decision away. What if a patient wants euthanasia, but the family does not. Does the patient get euthanized? That I don't know answer based on what you gave me. Further, having family come in affects their decision. If this was a debate about abortion that would be considered a pro-life coercion move to have family intervene in the decision. 3. Right to Die Even though the supreme court decision doesn't make it the right decision, but when you have a unanimous decision by legal experts from across the political spectrum it does make it a pretty reliable source. I hope you know the Human Rights Act you are referring to is from the United Kingdom. Putting individual countries aside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enacted by the UN does not consider euthanasia a human right. We are not forcing people to live they have the right to not accept medical help, and they are not going to hook people up to machines if they don't want it. Plus the doctors would obviously do everything they could to ease the pain. 4. Slippery Slope I will just assume it is suppose to be CON not PRO every time you said it. You do admit though it is a non-voluntary euthanasia. Considering death to be a harm. Then this harms a non-consenting party; therefore, it should be considered immoral by the standard you set. Also, this does mean you admit there is a slippery slope and that we have already started on our way down which was my original point here. 5. Voluntary? Yes in euthanasia it is the doctor killing them, if it wasn't then it would be Physician Assisted Suicide. [4] If families don't know that one of them is suffering then they are not that close in the first place, or they don't care. If they don't share those feelings because they don't want to burden their family with that pain then they also would not request euthanasia because they would cause even more pain to the family because the patient didn't trust them enough to share their feelings. So, request by non-burdens will be met with people trying to convince them that they are not burdens and should not be euthanized. How is this free, and voluntary when you are coercing them to choose one side? I didn't say in Nazi Germany euthanasia was in the patients. I did say that they were portrayed as burdens on society. Further, you said "I agree with CON that the 'burden' is particularly the most significant reasoning behind euthanasia", so the only difference is one was involuntary and the other is "Voluntary". 6. Pain Relief In death you don't feel anything, so it is impossible to feel good. It is not the same as medical treatment because no doctor ever prescribes death for a treatment. It is like saying cyanide cures depression. What if the patient request alcohol for treatment instead of other medication? Should we grant their request? Just because a patient request it doesn't mean we should do it. As shown in previous arguments real pain relief, Palliative care, is poorly developed in countries where euthanasia is legal. Concluding, my opponent has not proven that euthanasia is morally permissible by the standard you set, and you hold moral views contradictory to your own standard, acknowledges that pain is completely subjective, didn't disagree that there is no universal human right to die, acknowledges that we have gone down the slippery slope, agrees people consider themselves burdens and the main reason they "willingly" choose euthanasia, and doesn't contest that countries with euthanasia have poor Palliative care. My opponent provided a great debate, and may the better arguments win. Sources [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com... [3] http://euthanasia.procon.org... [4] http://www.worldrtd.net...