Oregon's Death By Dignity Law.

I fought the lawI'd like to make reference to this quickly before anything. I'm going to define the law using the actual law as reference[1]: "An adult who is capable, is a resident of Oregon, and has been determined by the attending physician and consulting physician to be suffering from a terminal disease, and who has voluntarily expressed his or her wish to die, may make a written request for medication for the purpose of ending his or her life...". This is clearly an example of physician-assisted euthanasia. My opponent's definition, though somewhat accurate, is not the exact definition of what the law is. The law is much more closely related to physician-led euthanasia, rather than assisted suicide. Use the force, lukeMy opponent claims that I am forcing life upon people: rather, I am stating that people would not, under rational and free conditions, choose death over life. Kobler-Ross, the founder of the study of the terminably ill, created the Kobler Ross model, and other studies to learn more about the issues one has to cope with, if you have a terminal disease. These gave great insight to what someone goes through when they want to kill themselves. What it imparted what simple: that "None of [Kobler-Ross]'s patients request euthanasia. Given personal attention and the right medication, she says, people come to accept their deaths and die peacefully without pain"[2]. Rational people do not choose death, as we well know. My opponent, I am sure, would not desire that we kill people who just line up and say "yes please!" That's because we know that death is contrary to life: something we inherently want to promote and protect. And we want to do this in all cases: we do not enthusiastically go forth trying to kill people, because we know that death is a terrible thing. When we have the alternative to life, and, as Kobler-Ross has shown, a pleasurable one. Utilitarianism, Kant, EuthanasiaEven in a Utilitarian model, though, euthanasia should be restricted moreso than this law states. The most prominent Utilitarian in the compilation of the theory is Henry Sidgwick, who states that "only conscious (i.e., intelligent) beings can appreciate values and meanings. So, life is significant to conscious, intelligent, though finite, beings - because it is a part of some eternal goal, plan, process, thing, design, or being. [Euthanasia] flies in the face of Sidgwick's dictum. It is a statement by an intelligent and conscious being about the meaninglessness of life."[3] How can a dead man appreciate values and meanings of being released from pain? It makes no sense.But following from the possibility that reduction of pain is what is important here: we have the problem of the pinprick argument. As my opponent is stating we should allow them to commit euthanasia to reduce the pain and not increase the pleasure, then the goal is simple: end all suffering. What's the easiest way to end all suffering? Kill all life! Without anyone to feel pain, and if we do it painlessly, then pain is infinitely at zero. The ludicrosity of this statement is obvious: we should go against Utilitarianism in practice, due to the conclusion it gives to end all life.The argument against euthanasia is simple: Humans, when acting autonomously (free and rational) don't wish to die. Humans who wish to die are, by necessity if we accept the previous premise, acting either unfree or irrationally. Thus, by respecting autonomy, we should make sure we help our fellow man live. We should not impose Utilitarianism, as it is treating people as a means to an end: we use ourselvse as a means to the end of lowering pain, or increasing pleasure: not to any moral good. We should be against euthanasia, though: we should not let people commit euthanasia as it is breaing the second moral maxim, it is treating people as a means to an end. Of course, my opponent has put forth a new moral maxim as well: the respect for autonomy, that is, "we should allow people to make their own decisions for themselves". However, this has intrinsic flaws, as we can see examples where this is wrong, for example, random killing is someone's own decision, but they still should not be allowed to do so! We need to reform it to Mill's addendum, that is, "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others". But we see internal problems arise: for example, we see it as irrational that one should cut themselves over a relationship breaking up. Or irrational people would commit suicide or euthanasia due to school bullying. In short, we know inherently that the principle of respect for autonomy does not work as a moral maxim.What does work? It is simple, we start removing the points that cannot be universalised, start removing the points that cannot be objectified. We would remove the point that states we base it on pleasure/pain, as the pinprick argument, where we should kill all life, is intuitively repulsive. We would remove the idea of the maxim for respect of self-sovereignty, as we see inherent times where the law can be broken, such as doing meth, or cutting oneself. We can, however, retain a promotion of autonomy: that is, free rational expression, as we know that rational people would do the right thing. For example, a theif will (and by definition has) stolen, but if they were in a rational, uncoerced state of mind, they would admit that stealing is wrong. This definition of promoting human autonomy is our moral maxim: "we should promote human autonomy". The death of people reduce and sacrifice human autonomy. Thus, the killing of others should be universally minimised. This, again, leads us to a rejection of the Death by Dignity law, which promotes euthanasia: the killing of others.Finally, I wish to make the following statements about other laws. Firstly, suicide is legal because punishing it is pretty damn hard. If they succeed, then they're dead, so you can't really punish them. If they are alive, then they haven't killed themselves, so they haven't committed suicide, so there is a real lack of grounds to convict someone for suicide. However, in most nations, if one commits grevious self harm, then they are put into a psychiactric institute. The law itself would be more in line with Kantian promotion of rationality, than the Utilitarian promotion of sovereignty, due to the simple fact that irrational people do not have the civil liberties, nor should they, of others. For example, a dog does not have rights. Though it is sovereign, it is not rational, so it does not have the same civil liberties. This is straight forwards. To put it simply: the law promotes Kantian Ethics, not Utilitarian.Quickly, regarding the state, the state's role is arguably to promote the pursuit of happiness. We cannot be happy by being dead. It may be to promote our own personal choice. I state those who prefer death to life should receive mental psychiactric help, not simply written off and allowed to die. The state should help those who wish to die. The way to do this is to help, not kill.To summarise, the law promotes Kantian Ethics, which is against euthanasia. We personally are inherently promoting Kantian Ethics over Utilitarianism, which puts us against euthanasia. Utilitarianism itself promotes euthanasia: Kobler-Ross' studies show that pleasure can be increased among terminally ill patients to the extent that it is better to criminalise euthanasia, but instead have better health services. Finally, Kantian ethics, a superior moral stance, works with the law. For these reasons, I urge a vote CON.1 - http://public.health.oregon.gov...2 - Practical Ethics, p1973 - http://samvak.tripod.com...;4 - http://www.jaredstory.com...;(note - Kobler-Ross is spelt differently to how it should, due to lack of the correct symbol for the "o" to a ":u".