Assisted suicide should be illegal.

Note: the status quo = assisted suicide is illegal and deadly drugs aren't available.Debate Overview(1) This debate isn't about making deadly drugs freely available to the public. The debate is about assisted suicide. I argued two potential alternatives to assisted suicide: (1) the status quo, and (2) making deadly drugs available. However, I only need to show that one of these options is better; I don't need to show that both are better. I win as long as one of these options is preferable to legalizing assisted suicide. Con seems to think my entire case is that deadly drugs should be available to the public. But that's only one contention among others. I can drop "deadly drugs" and still win through my other contentions. Con doesn't attack the status quo at all. Don't punish me for Con's misunderstanding; extend the full impact of all dropped contentions.(2) The burden of proof is shared. To win, Con has to make out a case for legalizing assisted suicide, which Con hasn't done at all. Instead, Con spent the entirety of Round 2 trying to refute my arguments. But in a debate, unlike football, the best offense isn't a good defense. When the burden of proof is shared, refutations alone aren't enough; even if Con refutes everything I argue, Con can't do better than a tie. Put simply, Con's lack of offense means he cannot win this debate. And at this point, it'd be abusive for Con to offer a case, because it gives me less rounds to refute his arguments than he has to refute mine.Equality(1) Con says life has no value. Instead, only "life experience" has value; the better the life experience, the greater the value of preserving it. Con also says this "value can be based on objective evaluations." Don't let Con muddle the issue: this is the same as saying life only has instrumental value (i.e. life only derives value externally instead of having instrinsic value). This view -- when taken to its logical conclusion -- leads not only to the collapse of equal protection (why treat people equally if they're not actually equal?) but also to infanticide (why protect infants if they've acquired no value?) and murder (if someone's life experience isn't valuable enough, there's no reason we can't kill them).(2) Con's criteria is completely arbitrary. How do we decide when someone's "life experience" means their life isn't worth preserving anymore? when they have 12 months to live? 6 months? how much suffering? what about the disabled? infants with Down's syndrome? those with Alzheimers? Is their "life experience" valuable enough to merit preservation? (3) Con mistakes the nature of informed consent. If blacks could become slaves through informed consent but whites couldn't, we'd still say the law undermines equal protection, because it protects the freedom of whites but not blacks. So too with assisted suicide. Assisted suicide protects the life of everyone but the terminally ill. Informed consent doesn't change that fact, because only the terminally ill are allowed to consent. If consent justifies murder (and that's what Con's arguing), then why limit assisted suicide to the terminally ill? Con's position is inconsistent. When taken to its logical end, Con's analysis says we should allow any murder where victims consent. The law doesn't and shouldn't allow this.Unintended Consequences (1) Con doesn't dispute the risk of abuse in assisted suicide. Extend this point.(2) Con doesn't dispute that there's a risk in expanding the categories for whom assisted suicide is available. Nor does Con dispute that assisted suicide would reduce interference with suicide attempts. Extend both these points.(3) Con says I haven't shown evidence that minority harms translate to assisted suicide. Evidence isn't necessary, because I'm making an analytic argument, not an empirical one. Con admits that minorities receive worse palliative care than nonminorities. Lack of adequate palliative care means more suffering, and more suffering means higher likelihood of assisted suicide. Remember, blacks are 3.5 times more likely than whites to have their limbs amputated, and there's no reason this wouldn't translate to assisted suicide, given the connection between palliative care, suffering, and assisted suicide. Elderly Dutch patients insist on written contracts against involuntary euthanasia, which suggests potential discrimination against the elderly. Con says there's no impact; I disagree. The law shouldn't create conditions that disenfranchise certain groups of people for arbitrary reasons.Freedom(1) Con drops the right to refuse. If assisted suicide is legal, and a patient requests that a doctor pull the plug, the doctor could respond: "I refuse to assist your suicide." This can happen because assisted suicide empowers doctors, not patients. Under an assisted suicide regime, doctors acquire a right to kill patients and a right to refuse killing patients. Doctors aren't obligated to assist suicide. Assisted suicide thus blurs the line between refusing treatment and requesting an assisted suicide, as both are just two sides of the same coin (both lead to death). The result is less control over our own bodies. Extend this argument.(2) Con misunderstands my *involuntary euthanasia* argument. The point is that assisted suicide creates a slippery slope that leads to involuntary euthanasia. I argue the slope is theoretically likely and an empirical reality. Theoretically, assisted suicide is premised on the notion of relieving suffering (Con admits this point); this logic justifies involuntary euthanasia as a means to end suffering. Empirically, the Netherlands legalized involuntary euthanasia after it legalized assisted suicide, proving the slope isn't just probable but also real.(3) Assisted suicide requires state intrusion into death and the deathbed to check for abuse (and Con admits the risk of abuse). Private suicides don't require any state intrusion into our freedoms; they're private by their nature.Corruption (1) Con doesn't address my argument that assisted suicide transforms the role of doctors. In effect, assisted suicide turns doctors into priests who sanctify suicide (i.e. grant patients moral absolution for committing suicide). Assisting suicide doesn't prevent or cure disease; it intentionally causes death. Doctors shouldn't be recommending suicide; as I said before, that's something better left to moral or religious institutions. The problem is that assisted suicide places some moral responsibility with doctors. The law (and medical profession) should prefer a legal regime where moral responsibility for a suicide is placed fully on the individual rather than the doctor.(2) If assisted suicide is legal, demand for pain medication will decrease. A decreasing demand for pain medication could disincentivize R&D -- the numbers are unclear but this is certainly a possibility to be wary of.SuicideNote: suicide is (and should be) legal.Con says suicide should be a medical treatment no more appropriate to moral judgement than a routine surgery. But that mistakes the nature of suicide. Suicide hasn't ever been a medical treatment and it shouldn't be; for most of history, suicide was a sin. Doctors shouldn't be allowed to recommend or preapprove a suicide because doctors don't know what happens after death. Suicide is beyond their scope of expertise. As for the effect on those left behind, that's a purely moral issue. When we judge suicide, it takes on meaning. Romeo and Juliet proved their love. Bouazizi's anger changed the Middle East; it reflected the value we place on life by shocking nations into action. Yes, social messages can be sent through other means, but that's irrelevant. The impact is the meaning we give suicide and life, our ability to judge (and forgive) suicide after-the-fact, and the message that pre-approving suicide sends about the value of human life.Deadly Drugs(1) There are two differences between assisted suicide and my proposal. First, assisted suicide empowers doctors; my proposal empowers individuals. Second, assisted suicide limits drugs to the terminally ill; my proposal doesn't. In my proposal, you'd still need to give informed consent, which would entail completing a psychological exam showing mental competence. Companies already make the drugs (it's the same stuff used in assisted suicide), so practicalities aren't gonna be an issue. Smart regulations solve all problems that Con raises.The net benefits to my proposal are: (1) more equality; (2) more freedom; (3) more deathbed privacy; (4) no slope to involuntary euthanasia; (5) no risk of abuse; (6) no harm to minorities; (7) no corruption of doctors; (8) no loss of meaning to suicide; and (9) less suicides. There's less suicides because doctors can't recommend suicides under my proposal. When doctors can recommend suicide, the suicide rate increases.(2) What are the harms? There are none. The drugs won't increase suicide rates, because anyone can already commit suicide with a little determination. The difficulty in suicide isn't the physical means; the difficulty is the will and determination it takes to kill oneself. Drugs don't affect our will and determination. And, studies show that restricting methods of suicide has no effect on the suicide rate. [1] Other studies show that impulsive suicides almost never involve drugs. [2] As for suicide attempts, there's no indication that those who attempt suicide as a cry for help would use these drugs. And if they did, they'd have to undergo a psychological evaluation and give informed consent, which means there'd be opportunity to interfere before the attempt. So, both theoretically and empirically, my proposal won't increase the suicide rate. Finally, note that every suicide is already a potential murder investigation. My proposal doesn't change that. Nor does it affect deathbed privacy; it only affects privacy after-the-fact, which is a much lower impact than deathbed privacy.[1] http://tinyurl.com...[2] http://tinyurl.com...