Euthanasia Should Be Legal.

"Stemming from my argument from Round 1, it's evident that I am arguing in favor of euthanasia by voluntary consent, and not euthanasia by involuntary consent (at least not in this specific debate). My apologies if this was unclear from just reading the resolution." - Yes I do acknowledge you are in favor of euthanasia by voluntary consent. I am not sure what I have posted that suggests I am confused. 3. My argument is that the patient who is ill and seeking euthanasia may have been compromised by third parties. Meaning for whatever reason a third party convinces the patient accept voluntary euthanasia. The third party may be a family member in which case pushes the patient to request voluntary euthanasia in order to spare the third party from having to deal with the reality of someone they once loved so close to death and in pain. The third party imposes a selfish point of view on to the patient pushing the patient into requesting voluntary euthanasia. So essentially it is still voluntary since the patient is the one requesting euthanasia. Not to mention the issue of the "Will" of the patient, if any inheritance exists there may be even greater incentive for a third party to compromise the patient into requesting Euthanasia. You suggest: "With voluntary euthanasia, there could be legal documents or any other certified form of verification, perhaps like an audience of witnesses, of which before the patient will state that they are allowing their physician to perform the euthanasia procedure. The medical conditions of the patient should be reviewed by the hospital's panel of doctors, and a consensus on whether or not they should be allowed euthanasia can be reached. This will be to help prevent any corruption on the doctor's part, or someone else influencing from a third party." -These legal procedures do exist in oregon where voluntary euthanasia is legal. "Under the law, a capable adult Oregon resident who has been diagnosed by a physician with a terminal illness that will kill them within six months may request in writing, from his or her physician, a prescription for a lethal dose of medication for the purpose of ending the patient's life. The request must be confirmed by two witnesses, one of whom cannot be related to the patient, be entitled to any portion of the patient's estate, be the patient's physician, or be employed by a health care facility caring for the patient. After the request is made, another physician must examine the patient's medical records and confirm the diagnosis. The patient must be determined to not suffer from a mental condition impairing judgment. If the request is authorized, the patient must wait at least fifteen days and make a second oral request before the prescription may be written. The patient has a right to rescind the request at any time. The law protects doctors from liability for providing a lethal prescription for a terminally ill, competent adult in compliance with the statute restrictions. Participation by physicians is voluntary. The law also specifies a patient's decision to end his or her life shall not "have an effect upon a life, health, or accident insurance or annuity policy." (wikipedia.com) I do agree that these measure do in fact curb abuses of the system. However it is very plausible that a patient can perform all these legalities and still the decision is against his/her will. All these legal procedures are taken to ensure that the patient is seeking this request on their own accord, without a third party influence. The inclusion of witnesses unrelated to the patient in effect spreads the guilt. Meaning more people are involved, so a much more coordinated effort must be used to thwart the legal procedures, and if they get caught more people face legal punishment. In theory this will lower the likelihood of third party influence but it does not eliminate it. All these measures are bypassed with something as simple as a lie, and the patient will have submitted to the influence of a third party to kill him or herself. So even with all of these measures human flaws are not with out a doubt weeded out and deaths can occur against the will of the ill. This being true makes legalizing voluntary euthanasia a danger and unethical. 4."Let's assume doctors do get paid for voluntary euthanasia, and in this case got paid a LOT for it. If this were to be a viable problem in the future due to fears of corruption, then the solution will be simply to not pay them for euthanasia procedures." The USA operates on a Market System. Incentive is breed into every decision made by consumers and suppliers. If doctors were not paid for euthanasia there would be more incentive for them to falsely authorize euthanasia in which they were being paid for. So if a person discretely approached a doctor and offered a large enough sum of money to authorize the use of euthanasia on a patient, the doctor has much more incentive to perform a fraudulent euthanasia under your model of free euthanasia procedures. So making euthanasia procedures free in effect creates greater probabilities that fraudulent euthanasia procedures will occur, thus not remedying the situation of human greed and corruption. 5. In response to your statement about greed in all systems including business, lawyers, police, and people in positions of high influence. First of all i do agree greed exists all across the board. So since we have established greed will exist in the case of Euthanasia procedures lets move on. Now I do not think you can compare corruption of lawyers and cops to Euthanasia for a very simple reason. Transparency. You are absolutely correct that corrupt cops and lawyers do exist, I am sure there are countless documentaries and movies about this fact. But the corrupt behavior of cops, lawyers, and even businessmen are to some extent transparent. Cops have cameras in their cars that record sight and sound. Misconduct on the job can be recorded and used as evidence to uproot the corrupt behavior. If a cop makes extra money by trafficking drugs he will have trouble hiding the discrepancies between his income and level of standard of living. Lawyers keep detailed documents recording all procedures and motions they perform. They must keep them all on record for review by court. Any unjust or corrupt behavior will be recorded for find later. Even in Businesses, cooking the books becomes harder and harder since companies must release more and more information detailing their expenditures and sources of revenue. Discrepancies can be found through audit and the corruption up rooted. Euthanasia Procedures do not share the built in transparency measures that other systems have. Essentially once the ill person dies, so does the evidence of fraudulent behavior by a third party. Those pressuring the ill into voluntary euthanasia are off the hook once the beating heart of the patient stops. Since any system created to legalize voluntary euthanasia can not be rid or corrupt behavior legalizing euthanasia is a mistake. Since an indefinite barrier to transparency into that corrupt behavior also exists its seems dangerous to allow voluntary euthanasia to exist.