In Depth. Getting to grips with. Stranger than fiction. Popular articles. What do the different coloured poppies mean? The most extreme weather events of In pictures. Is Bosnia on brink of another war? Finally, many terminal patients want the right to assisted suicide because it is a means to endure their end without the unnecessary suffering and cost.
Most, also, believe that the right to assisted suicide is an inherent right which does not have to be given to the individual. It is a liberty which cannot be denied because those who are dying might want to use this liberty as a way to pursue their happiness. Terminally ill patients should be allowed to die with dignity. Choosing the right to assisted suicide would be a final exercise of autonomy for the dying.
They will not be seen as people who are waiting to die but as human beings making one final active choice in their lives. On the other side of the issue, however, people who are against assisted suicide do not believe that the terminally ill have the right to end their suffering. They hold that it is against the Hippocratic Oath for doctors to participate in active euthanasia.
The oath makes the physician promise to relieve pain and not to administer deadly medicine. This oath cannot be applied to cancer patients. For treatment, cancer patients are given chemotherapy, a form of radioactive medicine that is poisonous to the body.
As a result of chemotherapy, the body suffers incredible pain, hair loss, vomiting, and other extremely unpleasant side effects. Furthermore, to administer numerous drugs to a terminal patient and place him or her on medical equipment does not help anything except the disease itself.
Respirators and high dosages of drugs cannot save the terminal patient from the victory of a disease or an illness. Still other people argue that if the right to assisted suicide is given, the doctor-patient relationship would encourage distrust. The antithesis of this claim is true. Other opponents of assisted suicide insist that there are potential abuses that can arise from legalizing assisted suicide.
They claim that terminal patients might be forced to choose assisted suicide because of their financial situation. This view is to be respected. Competent terminal patients can easily see the sorrow and grief that their families undergo while they wait for death to take their dying loved ones away. The choice of assisted suicide would allow these terminally ill patients to end the sorrow and griefof their families as well as their own misery.
The choice would also put a halt to the financial worries of these families. It is all right, please do not worry anymore. There are still some, however, who argue that the right to assisted suicide is not a right that can be given to anyone at all. This claim is countered by a judge by the name of Stephen Reinhardt.
This ruling is the strongest defense for the right to assisted suicide. Asking for death does not necessarily mean that they have nothing to live for: only that the patient has decided that after a certain point, the pain outweighs the good things.
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Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. Ethics guide. Pro-euthanasia arguments. On this page Overview of arguments in favour of euthanasia Regulating euthanasia People have the right to die Other human rights imply a right to die Libertarian argument Medical resources Moral rules must be universalisable Euthanasia happens anyway Is death a bad thing?
Page options Print this page. Arguments about death itself Is death a bad thing? Regulating euthanasia Those in favour of euthanasia think that there is no reason why euthanasia can't be controlled by proper regulation , but they acknowledge that some problems will remain. People have the right to die Human beings have the right to die when and how they want to In The Independent, March Other human rights imply a right to die Without creating or acknowledging a specific right to die, it is possible to argue that other human rights ought to be taken to include this right.
The right not to be killed The right to life gives a person the right not to be killed if they don't want to be. The rights to privacy and freedom of belief include a right to die This is the idea that the rights to privacy and freedom of belief give a person the right to decide how and when to die.
It concluded that the right to life did not give any right to self-determination over life and death, since the provisions of the convention were aimed at protecting and preserving life. English law already acknowledges that people have the right to die This argument is based on the fact that the Suicide Act made it legal for people to take their own lives.
Opponents of euthanasia may disagree: The Suicide Act doesn't necessarily acknowledge a right to die; it could simply acknowledge that you can't punish someone for succeeding at suicide and that it's inappropriate to punish someone so distressed that they want to take their own life. Libertarian argument This is a variation of the individual rights argument.
If an action promotes the best interests of everyone concerned and violates no one's rights then that action is morally acceptable In some cases, euthanasia promotes the best interests of everyone involved and violates no one's rights It is therefore morally acceptable Objections to this argument Opponents attack the libertarian argument specifically by claiming that there are no cases that fit the conditions above: people sometimes think things are in their best interests that are not morally acceptable The arguments that euthanasia is intrinsically wrong fit in here people are sometimes wrong about what's in their best interests people may not realise that committing euthanasia may harm other people euthanasia may deprive both the person who dies and others of benefits euthanasia is not a private act - we cannot ignore any bad effects it may have on society in general Top.
Medical resources Euthanasia may be necessary for the fair distribution of health resources This argument has not been put forward publicly or seriously by any government or health authority. In most countries there is a shortage of health resources. Objections to this argument This proposal is an entirely pragmatic one; it says that we should allow euthanasia because it will allow more people to be happy. Moral rules must be universalisable One of the commonly accepted principles in ethics, put forward by Immanuel Kant, is that only those ethical principles that could be accepted as a universal rule i.
To put it more formally: A rule is universalisable if it can consistently be willed as a law that everyone ought to obey. Euthanasia happens anyway Euthanasia happens - better to make it legal and regulate it properly Sounds a bit like "murder happens - better to make it legal and regulate it properly". When you put it like that, the argument sounds very feeble indeed. A utilitarian argument for euthanasia From a utilitarian viewpoint, justifying euthanasia is a question of showing that allowing people to have a good death, at a time of their own choosing, will make them happier than the pain from their illness, the loss of dignity and the distress of anticipating a slow, painful death.
Is death a bad thing? Why ask this question? If death is not a bad thing then many of the objections to euthanasia vanish. Why is death a bad thing? We tend to regard death as a bad thing for one or more of these reasons: because human life is intrinsically valuable because life and death are God's business with which we shouldn't interfere because most people don't want to die because it violates our autonomy in a drastic way The first two reasons form key points in the arguments against euthanasia , but only if you accept that they are true.
People don't usually want to die People are usually eager to avoid death because they value being alive, because they have many things they wish to do, and experiences they wish to have. Violation of autonomy Another reason why death is seen as a bad thing is that it's the worst possible violation of the the wishes of the person who does not want to die or, to use philosophical language, a violation of their autonomy. In the case of someone who does want to die, this objection disappears.
Being dead, versus not having been born Some people say that being dead is no different from not having been born yet, and nobody makes a fuss about the bad time they had before they were born.
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