The Wages of Death Assisted Suicide Continues Its Inexorable Expansion by Wesley Smith
To follow up my last post, I'd like to touch on the wide range of arguments that have been made against assisted suicide for this week's post. It is easy to understand why euthanasia is such a controversial topic, as well as why some people might be strongly opposed to it. Because we have examined the arguments for euthanasia, however, it is only just to take a closer look at the many arguments against it.
Across most sources, these arguments are divided into three categories (which, at times, overlap in their reasoning): ethical arguments, practical arguments, and religious arguments. Additional points have certainly been made that do not properly fit into any of these categories. Also, disclaimer: I will not be citing every single argument that has been made within these categories and will also not be presenting the refutes to these points that come from the other side. Some of these can be found in my last post.
Ethical Arguments
One of the most commonly presented ethical arguments is often referred to as the "sanctity of human life." In other words, human life is sacred, and any deliberate taking of a life is prohibited except in the defense of others.
Another widespread ethical argument, known as the "slippery slope," expresses the concern that if euthanasia with the permission of a patient were to be legalized, it would not be long before involuntary euthanasia would start to happen. Defenders of this concept say that legislation could never create a definite enough barrier between voluntary and involuntary euthanasia. In the worst cases, they fear that doctors will kill burdensome patients without permission to spare health care costs.
Next, some argue that assisted suicide devalues human lives – that the practice basically implies that it is better to be dead than disabled. Most disabled people would vehemently disagree with this notion, but if we were to legalize euthanasia, would we seem as a society to be reinforcing the notion? Worse yet, would this convince disabled people that they are burdens to society?
Practical Arguments
Some of the goals of palliative care
As a reminder, palliative care is "physical, emotional and spiritual care for a dying person when cure is not possible." It neither hastens nor postpones death; rather, it just tries to minimize pain and suffering until a patient faces death. Some contend that stellar palliative care is the more practical alternative to euthanasia. The introduction of euthanasia could potentially reduce the availability and/ or quality of palliative care because medical providers will opt for the more cost effective route – to end a patient's life by quick injection. Further, legalizing euthanasia will impede the ongoing search for cures and treatments for terminal illness by undermining the motivation to provide relief to these suffering people.
Another practical argument is that legalizing assisted suicide would give too much power to doctors. From this perspective, euthanasia gives doctors, not patients themselves, the ability to decide when patients die. Doctors provide the information to disabled patients on which they will base their decisions about euthanasia. Hence, no regulation on euthanasia laws could be strict enough to take this power away from doctors. Evidence has even shown that doctors do make improper decisions when using their power. For instance, studies have found that Do Not Resuscitate orders are more frequently used for black people, alcohol misusers, non-English speakers, and people infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus. This data suggests that doctors have stereotypes about which lives are more or less valuable, and use these stereotypes when advising patient decisions
Religious Arguments
Finally, most religious arguments concerning assisted suicide reason that euthanasia is death against the will of God. The majority of these points have been presented by people of Christian faith, yet represent values common among various other religions. Many of the points central to this perspective overlap with the ethical arguments, like respecting the sanctity of life. Religious arguments, however, are founded on the belief that life is given and taken away by God, and no human being has the authority to take this role. In this view, a doctor who euthanizes a terminally ill patient is sacrilegiously "playing God."
Also, religious enthusiasts maintain that human life is valuable because it was made in God's image. Therefore, to suggest euthanasia, even for oneself, is to say that that life is worthless, and absolutely no one has the right to that statement because our intrinsic value is our relation to God.
According to Christian faith, a person's value is not measured by mobility, intelligence, or any achievements in life. Hence, a third religious contention is that all human lives are equally valuable because we were all created by the same God. Therefore, even severely ill patients maintain the same intrinsic value as other people. It would be against God to treat these lives as worthless, as would be done by prescribing euthanasia.
Millions of people stand strongly against the legalization of assisted suicide.
To opponents of assisted suicide, the term "death with dignity" is a euphemism that it not acknowledged by the medical world. Their ultimate assessment of the assisted suicide debate is that the practice would devalue human life and could lead us down the path to dangerous health care practices. As a society, we need to reinforce the sanctity of life, not provide people with means to devalue it. Yet in the increasingly autonomous society in which we live, it is not clear how long this principle can endure.
Source: https://sites.psu.edu/mehealth/2015/03/16/arguments-against-assisted-suicide/comment-page-1/
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