Euthanasia Should be Legal in Medical Practice

Thanks, Con.Apologies for the brevity of my constuctive case; I can assure you my rebuttals round will be longer :)My opponent's arguments seem to largely concern themselves with problems surrounding the practical implementation of legalized euthanasia; I will independently address each of his concerns. R1) Hippocratic OathCon cites the Hippocratic Oath as a reason for why doctors should not ever be allowed to euthanize their patients, even if they have full consent. Firstly, my opponent has not yet established that the Hippocratic Oath has the objective authority necessary for us to simply take its assertions as ethical laws, as Con seems to be doing. Secondly, Con goes on to say that "Though some of the original's tenets have transformed drastically, this one has remained true to Hippocrates and the physicians of old." No justification is provided for why this tenet of the Hippocratic Oath should be treated any differently than the ones which have 'transformed drastically'... now that we have the technology to perform the painless 'mercy' killing of the terminally ill, why should this tenet not be subject to the same "drastic transformation" of some of the other tenets? Seeing that such changes have occurred at all, the Hippocratic Oath is evidently not meant to be some sort of rigid, unchanging code of conduct for doctors-- it must adapt to the times. The Hippocratic Oath, on its own, does not serve as a firm basis for condemning euthanasia.R2) Human DignityCon claims that by abstaining from administering euthanasia, a doctor is respecting the "arcane dignity that revolves around human life". However, Con never actually objectively shows that this dignity resides in all humans-- all he has provided is the bare assertion of its existence. What exactly IS "dignity", anyways? According to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, it is "the quality of being worthy of honor or respect" [1]. In that case, it would seem that euthanasia would only serve to *preserve* a human's dignity! If a person is terminally ill to the point that they no longer wish to live, is it not an insult to their dignity to force them to continue living, enduring great suffering as their overall condition gets more and more pathetic each day? Administering euthanasia upon the patients consent allows them to die on their own terms and with *greater* dignity than otherwise. The concept of human dignity, if it exists as anything more than a subjective construct of Con's imagination, would seem to only support the legalization of euthanasia.R3) Slippery SlopeThe title of this rebuttal, a phrase employed by Con himself, gives away this argument's fatal flaw: it is, indeed, a slippery slope logical fallacy [2]. If by some obscure reasoning, Con can justify Y resulting from X, and we accept Y as bad, that in no way indicates that X is bad as well-- unless it can be proven that legalizing euthanasia will inevitably result in the legalization of murder, there is no way for us to rationally condemn euthanasia on the basis of such reasoning. Con's reasoning, far from showing inevitability, is fallacious; it ignores the fact that the administering of euthanasia can *only* occur with the consent of the patient. There is no logical reason to believe that doctors will suddenly stop paying attention to consent after euthanasia becomes more widespread. This argument is logically flawed.R4) Palliative CareCon takes up a righteous tone, proclaiming that euthanasia having caused a decline in palliative care is a horrendous outrage, yet we are not given any reason by Con to agree with his assessment of this noted trend. From Time Magazine: "One out of every four Medicare dollars—over $125 billion—is spent on care near the end of life, and the financial burden on families can be staggering. Yet aggressive treatment too often fails to improve or lengthen the lives of the terminally ill... Says Ira Byock, director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and author of 'The Best Care Possible': 'When patients have a terminal illness, at some point more disease treatment does not equal better care.'" [3]. Not only are there financial reasons to prefer euthanasia over extensive palliative care, but such aggressive end-of-life also tends to cause the patient far more suffering than simply administering euthanasia does. If Con wants us to buy his argument, here, he needs to show *why* euthanasia causing a decline in palliative is a bad thing which warrants the banning of euthanasia.CONCLUSION: All of Con's arguments have been fully refuted. I will proceed to defend my opening argument regarding the rights-based justification of euthanasia's legality next round.[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com...[2] https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com...[3] http://time.com...