voulentary euthanisa should be legal

My sympathies to my opponent for feeling under the weather. I hope he gets well soon. On the surface, my opponent would like you to believe that his request is simple: to give suffering people a means by which they can escape their suffering. My goal, as the contender in this debate, is to show how my opponent's position fails in it's over simplification and reasoning. My opponent says quite plainly that he believes assisted suicide to be a right. In the same way that energy is never created or destroyed but always transferred or converted, entitlement rights carry with them the effect of suppressing rights of others. By nature, any right granted to an individual necessarily places a moral duty on others. The right to freedom of speech, for example, places a moral duty on others not to inhibit that freedom. The right to non-discrimination places a moral duty on employers to hire according to skill and ability alone. Moral duties, by their very nature, restrict one's freedom. Ergo, protecting the rights of some implies suppressing the freedom of others. Protecting rights is good, but we must not get carried away granting rights to everyone without consideration for the suppression of freedoms that accompany them. Therefore, in the case of euthanasia, we must consider the freedoms suppressed by its legalization. To do this, let us analyze two scenarios. In the first, euthanasia is not a right, not guaranteed by the state, and is in fact illegal--that no institution or individual succumb to abuses. In the second, euthanasia is legal and guaranteed by the state, forcing at least some institutions or individuals to comply so that the right to mercy killing is not denied or inhibited. In both scenarios we will consider two people groups: Patients seeking assisted suicide and doctors holding to the Hippocratic Oath so dearly as to be unwilling to ever perform such procedures. Case 1: Euthanasia Rights Denied - Patients Seeking Assisted Suicide: Freedoms inhibited. The only way out for these patients without placing others in legal jeopardy is to dispatch themselves. - Hippocratic Doctors: Total Freedom. These doctors can work and live wherever they choose without fear of compromise. Case 2: Euthanasia Rights Protected - Patients Seeking Assisted Suicide: Total Freedom. These patients can choose to die at the hands of a hospital or institution guaranteed to be within reasonable distance and affordability. - Hippocratic Doctors: Freedoms inhibited. These doctors my still be able to practice without compromising their convictions, but they will be limited where they can work and live and are not immune to litigation. Given this analysis, my opponent is mistaken in supposing that the legalization of euthanasia has only benefits and no consequences. In order to justify making euthanasia legal, he must show that it is indeed a fundamental right. The only justification he has so far offered is an appeal to emotion. He speaks of unbearable emotional trauma when watching a loved one suffering. He appeals to the personal experiences of those with terminal illness. This seems to be less an argument for the right to die as it is a right to not have to feel bad. Does my opponent truly suggest that doctors sworn to the Hippocratic oath ought to be in the awkward position of sacrificing their convictions in order to make others feel less sad? The fact that people hurt is not a sufficient reason to call euthanasia a legal right. Until my opponent can show that euthanasia is an inalienable right, his argument amounts to wishful thinking and emotional appeal. In my view, this is a terrible reason to infringe upon the Hippocratic Oath that so many doctors take to heart. This is made especially worse given that terminally ill patients are not currently prohibited from choosing their time of death. They are only limited as to HOW that death is carried out. To summarize, I argued in my first round that terminal illness is an arbitrary definition that has more to do with emotion than medical criteria. I further argued that claiming a ownership of life while deferring ownership of death is hypocritical and that the possible legal ramifications are too risky. In this round, I showed how my opponent fails to recognize that granting rights to one individual ultimately suppresses the freedoms of others and that, in this case, such action cannot be justified by a simple appeal to emotion. Euthanasia is not a right and should not be legal.