Assisted Suicide can be morally justified in most cases.

-> Ok, the way he tries to refute my contention is that permission gives the moral justification for killing. This "permission" does not negate the immorality of the action of killing. No matter how you try to justify it, killing is immoral. Furthermore, he says that the patient has good reason to die. May this be from pain, physical or emotional, etc. My opponenet misses one key point: you are making another human being commit an egregious act. I.e. killing. It can never be morally justified to have someone else commit a moral and legal crime. No, I'm trying to refute your contention be saying that permission and ample reason are justification. Killing may be immoral in many cases, but assisted suicide is not immoral. When you murder someone, do you have their permission? No. You are killing them in cold blood, often with premeditation. However, I believe that when you partake in assisted suicide, the patient's permission and the fact that their life is so full of suffering it is no longer worth living justifies the action. I am not missing the one key point you claim me to miss. I am not making another human being commit a bad act, because it is not a bad act if you fulfill one's final wishes. You are committing a act of love and mercy because you love that person so much that you are willing to put them out of your life and are willing to make this final sacrifice to them. You are willing to fulfill that person's final wishes, and I think that we should not stop someone from killing another person whose life is no longer worth living. --> My opponent again tries to jsutify it with the idea of permission. Even if you have permission or not, killing another person uses them as a means to an end. This violates morality because humans are ends themselves. Yes, I am indeed justifying Assisted Suicide with the idea of permission because in this case, killing another person is justified. All you are doing in this argument is spouting Kant, and you are not actually justifying it. You actually have to explain this if you wish to use this argument. --> I'm sorry, but I made a pretty common assumption. Ok, so my opponent justifies assisted suicide by anyone. So this means that your mother wants to die because she is in tremendous pain. She asks her son to kill her. What type of request is that. Son, kill me. However, back to the doctor point. The law would never justify the right to kill a person for suicide reasons without a legitimate authority doing it. In this case, it would be a doctor. however doctors take an oath to not intentionally cause harm to others. This can also be applied to the Constraint Theory. This moral theory states that a moral action can NEVER cause harm to another person. With or without consent. Why? Because causing intentional destruction and harm is blatantly contradictory to moral principles. Again, you are not seeing my whole argument. I am not justifying killing your mother just because she broke her arm and is in pain. What I am justifying is killing your mother if your mother is terminally ill, will not get better no matter what, in constant pain and suffering, and asks you to do so. Ok, back to the doctor point. You said that the law wouldn't justify the right to kill a person for suicide reasons without a legitimate authority doing it. Like I said before, the law is not the measure of morality. Just because something is legal, it does not make it morally right. Likewise, just because something is illegal, it does not make it immoral. Even if it was, I just want to ask you why a doctor would be a legitimate authority, and why. What makes a doctor so much better than any of us, that only a doctor can kill someone in an assisted suicide? Just wondering. Again, with your Constraint Theory. You are just quoting a theory, and you are not justifying the theory. Just because Kant said one thing and this theory says another, it does not mean that whatever they said is right. In fact, there are no such things as moral principles, since what one believes to be moral differs from who you talk to. --> My opponenet misses the point. I was arguing that the law is a letter format of a society's moral code. Murder, can never be morally and legally justifiable, even with consent. Murder is inherently wrong and can never be justified. This is shown in the law. Furthermore, by justifying murder in the format of assisted suicide, a slippery slope effect could be created which would leaf to other justifying of killing. Killing and murder must be seen as an intrinsic immoral action. I'd like to show you a definition from Merriam Webster: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought that came directly from Merriam Webster as the definition of murder. There are several reasons why murder is unjustifiable. Note the malice aforethought in the definition. Assisted suicide is not meant as a bad thing. You are not assisting someone to die because you hate them and they owe you money. You are assisting them because you love and care for them, and wish that they end their life in a painless fashion. Assisted Suicide is not murder, because you are not thinking to kill them for a bad reason. You are killing them because you want to ease their pain and suffering, and because they have asked for you to end their life. Therefore, your slippery slope argument doesn't work. --> Again, you miss my point. I am saying that assisted suicide resembles genocides and immoral acts that have happened in the past. It is a way of cleansing the world of people that can't live "normal" lives. May it be forced or consented, killing just for the sake of achieving an end is not morally justified. Again, assisted suicide is not a genocide. It is not immoral. It is not cleaning the world of people who can't live normal lives. Assisted Suicide is an act of mercy and kindness. You are helping another person fulfill a final wish because that person is unable to do so himself. Is that so wrong? How does that resemble genocide? Overview: Consent DOES NOT jsutify the act of killing. Killing is murder. Murder is inherently immoral, not matter what circumstances. Therefore, assisted suicide is not MORALLY justifiable. Murder may be inherently immoral, but assisted suicide is not. Consent and intent is what divides the two, and it is those two reasons that make assisted suicide justified, but murder not. In conclusion, my opponent has brought forth a good case, which centers on making assisted suicide a form of murder and genocide. He claims that because murder is unjustifiable, so is assisted suicide. However, my opponent fails to realize that there is a very large difference between murder and assisted suicide. When you murder someone, you kill them with malicious intent. Also, you have no reason to do so. However, assisted suicide is different because you are not approaching the act with malicious intent, there is ample reason, and you have their permission. There is no reason you should not be allowed to carry out the action that patient as asked you to do. All in all, I believe that objectively, my arguments have held more sway in this debate that his, and for that reason, I believe that you should vote for the Pro. Thank you