- Question
- Should euthanasia be legal?
- Position‹2 of 2
- No, euthanasia should be illegal
Proponents of legalizing euthanasia cannot guarantee that the practice wouldn't be abused.
The argument
The objection is not to the principle of a dignified death but to what a legal framework would be used for once it existed. Any system that makes ending a life lawful under certain conditions creates an interest in bringing cases within those conditions, and the question is who would act on that interest. Families are the first concern. Serious illness is expensive, and prolonged illness is expensive for a long time; where there is also an inheritance to be preserved, the financial interest of those around the patient points one way. Pressure of that kind rarely looks like coercion. It is expressed in what is said about the cost, in the exhaustion visible in the people providing care, in the suggestion that the patient would not want to be a burden — and a patient who is ill, dependent and frightened is poorly placed to resist it. The decision would be recorded as the patient's own, and in form it would be. The second concern is the state. A government that can lawfully end lives under medical authority has acquired an instrument, and proponents of this position argue that instruments get used: a practice established for the terminally ill could be extended, under the guise of medical help, to those a state regards as undesirable. The guise is what makes it dangerous, since the apparatus of consent and clinical judgment would remain in place while the purpose behind it changed. The third is the profession itself. Physicians would hold the power to administer death, and there is no guarantee that none would abuse it. Safeguards depend on the honesty of the people applying them, and a safeguard a doctor can satisfy on paper is no check on a doctor who intends otherwise. Because none of these risks can be designed out of the system, proponents conclude that euthanasia should remain illegal.
Premises
Counter-arguments
The potential for abuse is overstated by opponents of legal euthanasia; there are safeguards in place to prevent such events from happening, like the mental evaluation of a patient. The reality of legal euthanasia in places like the Netherlands, Belgium or state of Oregon shows that the fears of abuse are unfounded.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P3] Possible abuse of legal euthanasia does not imply that the practice is ethically unjustified.