Legalize Euthanasia

My opponent has gone down the route of pointing out the fallacies I have apparently committed. Therefore, the majority of this round will be for me to explain why my arguments are not guilty of being fallacious. The first accusation is that my argument relating to terminal illness uses a false equivalence fallacy. However, that would only be the case if I actually asserted that normal life is equivalent to terminal-illness life in all respects, which is obviously guilty of the false equivalence fallacy. Instead, I asserted that normal life is equivalent to terminal-illness life in ONE respect, namely the fact that both are terminal. I do not extrapolate this premise to assert their equivalence. To put it simply, this is what I did: My opponent used the logic that; 'the fact that we're going to die at the end of a terminal illness makes it inconsequential that we die prematurely'. However, the characteristic of terminal illness that she uses to justify this assertion is the fact that it is terminal. Therefore we can simplify the logic to: 'the fact that we're going to die at the end of X period of time makes it inconsequential that we die in the midst of X period of time'. Yet this logic has absurd consequences, namely that it would mean that it is inconsequential to kill someone in the midst of their lifespan. This is because all life is terminal, why should the fact that one is ill make it any less inconsequential to kill them prematurely? Moving on, Pro claims that some patients may be too ill to have a worthwhile life in their final days. This may be true, but I should imagine that if they are so ill that they cannot have worthwhile life then they are only alive because of life support machines. Removing life support machines is not euthanasia because it is not killing by means of either direct chemical injection or removal of ordinary nutrients (i.e food and water). Removing life support is letting nature take it's course, as opposed to euthanasia which is direct preternatural killing. My opponent goes on to restate her argument about giving patients a sense of control. However, this is not a substantial reason why we should legalise euthanasia. We could legalise loads of things that give people control, it is non sequitor to actually justify doing so. The next accusation is that my argument about mental instability commits the inductive fallacy. Supposedly, I do this by moving from 'many terminally ill patients are mentally unstable' to 'euthanasia should be denied to all terminally ill patients.' This would be fallacious if I did not support this logical jump. I will support it now. The fact is that mental illness is frequently underdiagnosed in terminally ill patients (1). So if we implemented regulation that decreed that terminally ill patients who are also mentally ill cannot have euthanasia, we would not prevent ALL mentally ill people from requesting euthanasia (because we would only be counting the diagnosed mentally-ill patients). The only way to prevent all mentally ill people from seeking euthanasia is, therefore, to prevent everyone from requesting euthanasia. My opponent responds to my argument about development of pain relief by simply stating that 'it should still be [the patient's] individual choice'. However, she does not justify why it is necessary to allow an unnecessary choice. Finally, Pro maintains that the problem of depression can be solved by treatment. However, as I have said above, these mental conditions are underdiagnosed. Consequently, only those diagnosed with depression can be treated for it and therefore, as not all who have depression are diagnosed, not all euthanasia-candidates would be adequately treated to be able to make a sound decision. Furthermore, treating mental illnesses is a very inexact science - it is idealistic to expect doctors to administer a cure and then be certain that it has worked. The next accusation my arguments face is that of committing the slippery-slope fallacy. The slippery slope in question being from legalisation of euthanasia to the normality of euthanasia. My opponent insists that 'There is no proof that [my] argument would in fact occur.' On the contrary, there IS evidence from the Netherlands (a country where euthanasia is legal) that euthanasia is becoming normalised and increasingly accepted. The amount of deaths from euthanasia in the Netherlands is increasing exponentially (2)(3), yet there is no significant change in the rate of diagnosis of terminal illness. Therefore the only possible explanation for this increase is the increasingly-accepted nature of euthanasia. This is evidence that euthanasia will, if legalised, become the default way to die. This ties into my next argument about medical research. My opponent insists that there will still be some who do not request euthanasia on ideological grounds, and these can be used for research. However, the evidence from the Netherlands indicates that this number will be ever-diminishing, which is bad news for medical research because for proper methodological practice, large sample sizes are required. With legal euthanasia, these samples could not be found. Pro goes on to raise the possibility of research done post-mortem. Whilst this is possible, it is far more effective to observe the progress of a disease as it kills someone (morbid, I know). Post-mortems can only do so much. The final accusation of my arguments is that my argument regarding elderly patients commits the fallacious argument from silence. Pro highlights that I do not provide evidence that most terminally-ill patients are elderly. Yet the reason I did not deign to provide evidence was because it is fairly evident that most terminally-ill patients are elderly. But for the purposes of the debate, and to rebut the accusation, I will provide evidence. In 2012, 83.4% of hospice patients were over 65 (4). As a hospice is an institution designed to care for the terminally ill, it is therefore logical to conclude that the majority of terminally-ill patients are over 65 (elderly). Whilst it is true that there are a few terminally ill patients who are not elderly, the fact that the majority ARE elderly entails that we ought to consider how euthanasia legislation would affect them. I have argued soundly that it will negatively affect them, so it follows that we ought to prevent euthanasia becoming legal. Finally, my opponent voices a new argument, that of whether or not euthanasia is 'unnatural'. Yet this argument does not harm my position because removal of life-support is not euthanasia; it is the patient declining to receive medical treatment. We already have a right to refuse treatment in the UK(5), yet euthanasia is not legal in the UK (6). This entails that they are not the same thing. To summarise, one can support the right to refuse treatment but still be against euthanasia. I thank my opponent for a very interesting debate, I have learnt a lot and I'm sure she has too :) (1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... (2) http://tinyurl.com... (3) http://www.telegraph.co.uk... (4) http://www.nhpco.org... (page 6) (5) http://www.nhs.uk...; (6) http://www.nhs.uk...