Euthanasia

‘Logical’ argument My opponent’s syllogism’s conclusions are flawed. If you assume the points, it may seem like a humane conclusion, however, the assumption that the points are correct--and then the conclusion--is inaccurate. My opponent’s whole arguments rests on a few things: the patients choose death, and that euthanasia will reduce their pain in the long run. Both of these assumptions are debatable. Patients who ‘choose’ death generally do so with bad reasoning. In fact, a significant amount of people who choose death are mentally ill. Research argues that if you are depressed, you are at least 4.1 times more likely to request for euthanasia, according to research of cancer patients with 3 months to live [1]. Further, in nearly every country where a form of physician assisted suicide is legal, the vast majority allow the killing of people with mental illness. In the Netherlands--which my opponent cites directly--the mentally ill are often euthanized. In Belgium, the mentally ill are euthanized in order to take their organs. The fact is, whenever you legalize physician assisted suicide, the law eventually evolves into a death-on-demand structure which leads to many people not capable of making these decisions wisely being killed [2]. Further, there is an issue of people in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada being murdered, as they are killed without explicit request. Obviously this is not legal, but the fact is that if it is legal to kill someone intentionally if they ask, it is easy just to put in your records ‘asked for death’ with minimal questioning from the law. In Oregon, the law began fairly successful. For 1/4 of patients asking for death, they received psychiatric care before their decision. They were walked through the process. However, by 2010, this has disintegrated. None of the people killed were told to seek mental care first [3]. Recent pieces by doctors bring excellent points to my opponents argument. When death becomes the answer, doctors see their patients have less faith in medical care. It is well established that people in the medical profession are a source of hope for their patients. To allow death leads to less hope, and it makes them feel unwanted--that at a certain point, life is not worth living. This is, as doctors argue, is one of the largest blows to human dignity. Further, this has led to a decrease in palliative care. Instead of easing pain and making the life worth living, physicians often choose death as a mean to end the pain, instead of attempting to help the patient [4]. A review of medical opinion shows that good pain medications can make life fairly painless, not the painful picture which my opponent construes. The vast majority of patients who suffer suffer because their doctor has not been properly instructed as to how to administer pain medication. Doctors fear to give too much pain medication as it may cause death, though this fear is often imagines. Doctors generally give medications PRN (per required need), but this leads to less satisfactory pain alleviation. Dosages vary based upon pain extent, and often underestimate the amount of medication needed, due to their lack of education on the issue. Undertreatment of pain is another leading cause for euthanasia requests. It may be thought that pain medications must be an expertise thing, this is not the case; most medicines capable of making the illness painless--therefore making euthanasia obsolete--are straightforward. Doctors need to understand that high dosages of opioids will cure the pain and are wholly safe when administered properly. Cancer patients often need 20-60mg of morphine every 4 hours. If palliative care is properly admitted, the need for pain relief through death minimizes [5]. Therefore, education of doctors, not the legalization of physician assisted suicide, will be superior in extending the life spans of patients and reducing pain. Economic Impacts Calculations show the savings per euthanasia are about 10,000 per victim. When this is properly accounted for, we would save about $627 million each year. My opponents research uses numbers including the mentally ill, who should not be allowed to receive euthanasia in the first place. So, assuming we can properly bar these people from being euthanized, this is the proper savings amount. This number is less than 1/3 of one percent of the US’s health care costs. The economic savings is very limited, and surely not worth the lives lost [6]. Other things would be far better at reducing healthcare costs: reducing regulations which amount to $169 billion of added cost to the industry each year [7], expand HSAs, push malpractice reform, privatize medicaid, and shrink the HHS would all be much better options to reducing the economic impacts of health care costs than killing patients [8]. Voluntary deaths will always occur There is no doubt in my mind that there will be the occasional euthanized patient. My opponent’s study is flawed in the fact it doesnt account for patients with mental illness. As noted, mental illness is the main cause for the decision of death, which is technically ‘voluntary’, or would be in the study my opponent cited. However, if the request was made on their basis for wanting to die due to depression, we can see how this should not be considered a true case of voluntarism, as the decision was made outside of a solid state of mind. My opponent claims euthanasia was a cause for 0.8% of deaths in the Netherlands before legalization, whereas his study noted that after legalization it was 1.7% of deaths were caused by euthanasia and .1% physician assisted suicide, totalling 1.8%, a 1% increase. Further, the rate of euthanasia has steadily increased since legalization, meaning legalization has led to more acceptance of the idea of euthanasia [9]. Further, a more recent study argues that now 2.8% of deaths are caused by euthanasia in the Netherlands [10]. Conclusion: Physician assisted suicide/euthanasia actually will harm palliative care, however, palliative care reduces, if not eliminates, the moral case my opponent construed: in fact, pain can be controlled without death and rather with proper education. The economic cost, enacting laws my opponent would pass if he was in control (has to be voluntary, not for mental illness unless treated) would actually lead to very minimal savings, and in fact, other methods that will increase quality of care--which don't involve killing patients--are superior in reducing healthcare costs. And finally, although even in areas where euthanasia is illegal euthanasia still occurs, the fact is, legalizing it leads to its practice being much more common. Even in the Netherlands where the laws prohibiting it were very unenforced, legalization led to a skyrocketing in its use. Imagine how rare it would be if the Netherlands kept their anti-euthanasia culture which they had in WW2. Euthanasia should remain illegal, resolution negated. 1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... 2. http://www.nationalreview.com... 3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... 4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... 5. http://medicine.emory.edu... 6. http://www.levinlaw.com... 7. http://www.cato.org... 8. http://www.ipi.org... 9. http://www.life.org.nz... 10. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...