Assisted suicide should be illegal.

OV1: If Pro wanted to discuss assisted suicide alone, he could have argued for the status quo from the start. When Pro presented an alternative, he changed the discourse. As a result, what we're comparing is the net benefits of assisted suicide vs. increased availability of deadly meds. That's the debate, and it's still topical, even if Pro wanted something else. On the running two alternatives point, four responses: 1) Pro continues to defend his case, so hold him accountable for it. 2) Pro made it clear in his opening round that he was proposing an alternative. A single alternative. The words “status quo” don't even appear in R2. He can't just add a case if he feels like it. 3) Pro expects me to hold to my case as given (which I presented in various rebuttals), even saying that it would be abusive for me to now present a case structure. If I must hold to what I said in R2, he must as well. 4) It is not at all fair, educational or reasonable to force me to argue against two diametrically opposed cases while my opponent need only engage one. I must hold to a single, consistent case. So must he. OV2: Rebuttal can be offensive and can win an equal burdens debate. I'm baffled that Pro is talking about the potential of abuse from me when he's engaged in actual abuse by presenting a double case and adding new planks to his plan. Pro expands his case in an attempt to avoid my harms, adding a psych exam and nebulous “smart regulations”. If abuse is the basis for any vote, it should be against Pro. I. The Case 1) Still vague. Pro says that companies already make these drugs, but doesn't respond to the fact that they're not currently available on store shelves. That's a huge increase in negative visibility. He doesn't address the realities of distribution, opposition from regulatory agencies, or the fact that no company is going to want to stock these. How can these drugs be OTC if they require evaluation? 2) Pro's case is now non-topical. He's legalizing assisted suicide, and just changing who is assisting. In my case, it's the physician and psychologist. In his, it's the psychologist (someone needs to do the psych evaluation) and the government. So either you accept his case expansion and vote him down for being non-topical, or dismiss it and accept my mental illness and informed consent points. You can also vote him down here because these expansions turn most of his impacts by requiring governmental regulation of individual actions on top of psych review. 3) Pro drops my point that many of those with mental illness hide that illness from doctors and families. Some of these will commit suicide without help. Assisted suicide requires that doctors and thus families find out about this illness and make it possible to address it. These suicides apply to all of Pro's cases. 4) Extend that there are almost a million people in the U.S. alone who try to commit suicide, fail, and thus can get the help they need. Pro's [1] only evaluates what happened in Finland after the availability of a single method of suicide was reduced. Pro's [2] actually contradicts this, showing that reduction of OTC drugs commonly used for suicide to sub-lethal quantities reduced successes heavily. Also, we're talking about an addition of a method used solely for the purpose, which is entirely different. However, even if it doesn't increase suicide rates, Pro's method makes attempts into certainties. Pro's [2] actually supports this, showing that those trying to commit suicide turn to less effective means when others are restricted. It even says “Self poisoning is...often impulsive.” And when the drug being taken is lethal by design (and therefore more toxic and rapid), that precludes medical intervention, making more suicides successful. Pro's argument that most won't use this assumes that every single attempted suicide is solely to garner attention. Psych evaluation reduces incidence of suicide without consent, but it's never going to be as effective as that plus physician visits, consultations, and built-in wait times that come with my case. 5) Even assuming that Pro's tests are effective, my temptation argument still applies. Regular proximity to a drug specifically meant to facilitate suicide creates a desire, and being told “no” won't remove that temptation – it will merely redirect them to other means. 6) Extend that a government allowing mass distribution of suicide drugs is far more harmful than the rare incidence of assisted suicide.[5] He drops that recommendations aren't regulated like prescriptions, leading to increased abuse by doctors. 7) Extend my murder investigations argument. Pro mishandles it. I'm saying that suicide becomes impossible to distinguish from murder. How do you determine if someone took one of these drugs on purpose or by the designs of someone else? He provides no means by which to do so, and therefore provides the means to murder without detection. He's also admitting that every suicide is investigated, which means that the loss to privacy is non-unique. II. Unintended Consequences Assisted suicide comes with acceptable risks. Recognizing the right of the dying to personally end their suffering is worth those risks. I made clear what the categories are for assisted suicide. Merely presenting a slippery slope without links to my case doesn't explain how those catories expand. If the minority harm is inadequate palliative care and increased amputations, then those are what need to be addressed. Providing access to assisted suicide addresses the pain society has caused better than status quo without imposing any decision. If the concern is that a gatekeeper is somehow imposing, then Pro's case expansion is giving them more reason to worry, as their suicides would now have to be approved by both their doctor and government. If gatekeepers are effectively pre-approving suicide, then Pro's engaging in it on a government-wide basis. III. Corruption Pro ignores my responses on the role of doctors: the lack of assisted suicide undermines the role of doctors by requiring that they cause/prolong further suffering and ignore patient pleas to end that suffering. Remember, doctors have a duty to minimize suffering. Doctors are solely assessing patient demand and eligibility for suicide. There's no recommendation involved here; the patient requests, the doctor either allows or does not allow them access. This is a medical and ethical issue, one that must be handled by doctors. As for R&D, Pro still isn't explaining how is such a small proportion of the population that receives assisted suicide altering the entire landscape of pain medication.[5] Pro's case is far more likely to have this affect suicide as a result of broad accessibility. IV. Suicide The legality of suicide is complex.[6] Pro is requiring that any laws that address it be ignored. Extend my point about mistrust – it applies even when suicide is legal. I said suicide was medical, not a medical treatment. If treatments are completely failing a person, then suicide becomes an appropriate possibility. It doesn't matter what happens after death, or how the doctor perceives it, since an end to life is what's being decided and not an afterlife. Pro drops his argument about medical aspects being neutral. Extend my point that a beneficial outcome for a patient is a net good, and that their choice of suicide can be that beneficial outcome. Pro doesn't explain why suicide provides any form of unique message that cannot be given by other means (e.g. protest). That means any impact is still non-unique. He doesn't explain how assisted suicide damages the meaning of suicide and life, nor does he explain how his case gives them better meaning. V. Freedom The right to refuse is integral to my case. Pro's example of a doctor pulling the plug once again conflates assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia. Assisted suicide requires that the patient have the capacity to administer medication. As a result, both “rights” Pro states are wrong. Doctors are not administering the medication or even recommending it, and therefore never engaged in killing. The wishes and actions of the patient are paramount. The doctor can do nothing without the refusal/consent of the patient. The line between withdrawing care and assisted suicide is, thus, drawn by the patient. Pro drops this. The Netherlands example still doesn't establish a link between involuntary euthanasia and assisted suicide; they legalized voluntary euthanasia first. If I'm not empowering doctors to end lives via their actions directly, then they have no legal means for this expansion. “Logic” doesn't surmount basic legal restrictions. Let me put this clearly: intrusion into death and the deathbed are not part of my case. Pro has yet to show how a lack of intrusion can lead to abuse. VI. Equality Pro's twisting my words. I said that life has no instrumental value, not that it has no value. It has inherent value. It's unclear how Pro gets from some lives lack of instrumental value to the collapse of equal protection, infanticide and murder. The inherent value of life ensures that none of these are justified. Pro continues to distort my case. I never said that informed consent should be the only standard by which we decide who should be allowed to receive assisted suicide. And it's not murder either (making Pro's newest slippery slope nonsensical), nor is it inconsistent. It's the legal capacity to end one's suffering when death is in the near future. It's absurd that Pro's attacking my case for vagueness considering his own. The standards are clear: nearing the end of life, undergoing suffering, and capable of informed consent and self-administration. None of these are arbitrary, meaning the law itself isn't arbitrary. Any specifics beyond those standards are decided between a doctor and patient, and those decisions are informed and individual. 5. http://bit.ly... 6. http://bit.ly...