Assisted Suicide can be morally justified in most cases.

"Even if killing is bad, assisted suicide may not be. There is a small distinction between the 2, and I want to make that distinction now. When you kill someone, you don't have their permission. When you assist someone in suicide, you do have their permission. I'm going to say that the consent the patient gives is enough moral justification. Also, law should have nothing to do with morality. The law is not the measure of morality. I agree, if someone wants to die, it may not always justify killing them. Those cases would be the exceptions to this topic, which is that Assisted Suicide can be morally justified in MOST CASES. In most cases of assisted suicide, the patient has very good reason to not want to live anymore. Imagine yourself, constantly in pain, suffering because there is no way to get rid of the pain. You will live with the pain for the rest of your life. You cannot enjoy life because of the pain. You are terminally ill, and there is no cure for your ailment. Is there really any reason you should want to go on living like this? Is there any reason you should want to live this life filled with pain, both physical and emotional? I think not." --> Ok, the way he tries to refute my contention is that permission gives the moral justification for killing. This "permission" does not negate the immorality of the action of killing. No matter how you try to justify it, killing is immoral. Furthermore, he says that the patient has good reason to die. May this be from pain, physical or emotional, etc. My opponenet misses one key point: you are making another human being commit an egregious act. I.e. killing. It can never be morally justified to have someone else commit a moral and legal crime. "In reference to your Kant card, I'm going to say that it is indeed possible to morally justify using another person as a means to your own end. If you are unable to do it, wish to do it, ask someone else to do it for you, and the other person is ok with it, I believe that there should be no reason you should not be allowed to die, as long as there is enough reason to do so." --> My opponent again tries to jsutify it with the idea of permission. Even if you have permission or not, killing another person uses them as a means to an end. This violates morality because humans are ends themselves. "I never once mentioned that you to ask your doctor to do it, and I never once said that it had to be your doctor who killed you. There are many ways to kill someone, many of which do not involve a doctor." --> I'm sorry, but I made a pretty common assumption. Ok, so my opponent justifies assisted suicide by anyone. So this means that your mother wants to die because she is in tremendous pain. She asks her son to kill her. What type of request is that. Son, kill me. However, back to the doctor point. The law would never justify the right to kill a person for suicide reasons without a legitimate authority doing it. In this case, it would be a doctor. however doctors take an oath to not intentionally cause harm to others. This can also be applied to the Constraint Theory. This moral theory states that a moral action can NEVER cause harm to another person. With or without consent. Why? Because causing intentional destruction and harm is blatantly contradictory to moral principles. "Again, I don't think that the law should be a factor in this debate. The law is not the measure of morality, so we cannot use it to judge whether something is moral or not. Also, you misunderstood me on my first point. We do not have the right to stop someone from committing suicide. We also do not have the right to stop the person who is going to kill the patient saying, no, you cannot kill this person, even though he has given you every right to do so. That is wrong. The reason it would be wrong to rob a bank is because that hurts people other than yourself. We do not have the right to hurt another person, unless we have their consent. I believe that that part, the consent, is what justifies killing them. I would not help someone go on a killing spree, because I know that a killing spree is wrong because we are killing people without their consent. If we had the consent of every person, and there was ample reason to do so, then we would be justified in killing them. We cannot extend a killing spree to assisted suicide because there is one main difference; one has the consent of the victim, and another does not." --> My opponenet misses the point. I was arguing that the law is a letter format of a society's moral code. Murder, can never be morally and legally justifiable, even with consent. Murder is inherently wrong and can never be justified. This is shown in the law. Furthermore, by justifying murder in the format of assisted suicide, a slippery slope effect could be created which would leaf to other justifying of killing. Killing and murder must be seen as an intrinsic immoral action. "Again, you are twisting my words to fit your case. I am not saying that we should go around killing any human we want. My point was that why should animals be allowed to be put out of their misery, and why is it that we are willing to help an animal out of its misery because we know it will die soon, so we kill it painlessly so that it will not be in pain any longer. Why is it that we are willing to do animals the favor of getting them out of their misery, without their permission, and we are unwilling to kill another human being for the same reason, they are miserable, their lives are full of pain, and WE HAVE THEIR PERMISSION!!!! They want death! Death is a welcome change to their life. Why should we refuse them this final wish?" --> your point was that since we kill animals we have a right to kill other humans. As I have pointed out this is dehumanization, which goes against morality. "Again, you are twisting my words. I am not claiming a superiority between humans. Just because someone is handicapped, it does not mean we should kill them. If they are stuck in a hospital bed, in constant pain and suffering, never able to get a single moment of rest because it hurts too much, then I believe we have the right to kill them, BUT only with their permission, and request. Everyone deserves the right to live, and we can only lose that right when we WILLINGLY give it up, and allow someone to kill us, because it hurts too much to live. Ethnic Cleansing: Again, there is no reason that should be justified. Assisted Suicide is not Genocide. I am not claiming that a person has the right to kill all the Jews, just because they are Jews. If there was a person who happened to be a Jew, and was terminally ill and was going to die no matter what, and wished to end this cycle of pain and suffering, I would agree with that person, and if they requested that I help him kill himself because he is unable to, I would help him. Not because he is a Jewish person, but because that person should not have to continue living in a cycle of pain and suffering." --> Again, you miss my point. I am saying that assisted suicide resembles genocides and immoral acts that have happened in the past. It is a way of cleansing the world of people that can't live "normal" lives. May it be forced or consented, killing just for the sake of achieving an end is not morally justified. Overview: Consent DOES NOT jsutify the act of killing. Killing is murder. Murder is inherently immoral, not matter what circumstances. Therefore, assisted suicide is not MORALLY justifiable.