Topic that was agreed upon in a message

"They do. Sometimes. If I have a one in a million chance of survival if I jump out of a plane at 30000 feet, without a parachute (someone has survived this), it doesn't mean it is okay because there MIGHT be a miracle. Yes, miracles occur, but the thing that makes it a miracle is that it almost never happens. If miracles always happened they wouldn't be miracles. Otherwise every time I recover from a cold, I would be praising the Lord for something insignificant. Anyways, miracles usually only happen to those with extreme faith. These people would most likely not take advantage of euthanasia, and let the Lord take care of them." > My opponent misses the point of my argument. Even if 100 people are saved in total in the next 5 years, it is still worth it. This is because of the huge value of human life. I use the word miracle in a metaphorical way, to explain something improbable, ‘miraculous' recoveries happen a lot more often than my opponent believes, they may be highly improbable but not extremely rare either. ‘Miracles', especially in medicine can happen to anyone, even to those without faith, therefore my opponents last point does not stand. So, we should always have faith in science and never devalue the worth of a single human life, let alone numerous. "Make the nurse do it. Seriously we should not let a silly oath written by some dude who died 3000 years ago prevent us from doing the right thing. The right thing is to let a person have control over their own life, and let them end it when they want." > An oath is an oath and after you make it (either it is right or wrong to do so) morality dictates that you should follow it. > The point that the nurse could perform the action is not accurate because it is the doctor who ultimately decides if the patient is on fact terminally ill. > The Hippocratic oath, is still made today by doctors (although it is not obligatory), because it summarises the basic ethic rules of medicine and its meaning is said to be true today as it was 2500 years ago, despite the evolution of medicine. Also, people who swear an oath have a moral obligation to obey it and doctors understand that in most cases. For example doctors who swear the oath are a much less likely to perform abortion. "Churches are wrong sometimes. Churches have also justified slavery, the Spanish Inquisition, and many other unfortunate events. Furthermore, the separation of church and state means that what churches think shouldn't affect policy. We are not forcing them to use euthanasia; a religious person can certainly let the Lord Handle things." > Just because they were wrong in the past doesn't mean they will always be wrong. Also, church has evolved a lot today and has gained a reputation over the past few of supporting morality. > My opponent fails to refute the point that we should not give the power over life and death should not be given to a human, especially a doctor, who can easily be influenced by third parties. Therefore extend it. > It would be hypocritical by doctors who claim to fully support church to contradict it by applying Euthanasia. If a doctor does in fact chose to follow the church and not support Euthanasia, he would have to obey the law and go against his beliefs, which leads us to the next point that may be irrelevant from the argument of my opponent, but should be taken into consideration as an argument of its own, because as I said in Round 1, I reserve the right to make other conention. Contention 6: What of the doctors who would object to Euthanasia? If a doctor refuses to support Euthanasia (many don't), 1. He/She would either have to go against his/her beliefs in order to keep their patients and money that they offer, this goes against liberty that my opponent claims to be supporting. 2. He/She would provide false opinions on the patient's conditioning in for them not to be subjected to Euthanasia. 3. He/She would have to give up their patient (and money from the treatment), to a doctor who supports Euthanasia just in case at some point of the treatment such an action is considered necessary, this is discrimination based on beliefs. In conclusion the affirmative would cause general problems in healthcare, this is already happening to some degree in the northern countries of Europe (strikes and objections from certain doctors), although sadly most doctors who object to Euthanasia chose to put their financial interest over their beliefs and shut their mouth in return for cash. "It is the patient's choice. If he or she wants to die, we can't interfere simply because a doctor may be a pessimist. Also, we could write into the law that they must consult more than one doctor. This contention can be avoided by a euthanasia law if we want it to." > Yes it is the patient's choice, but my opponent misses the point of my contention, I says that certain psychological factors (e.g. pessimism) effect the patient's choice and with his own consent may rob him of his last months of life and potential (although improbable recovery), my opponent's point is completely irrelevant and if one thing works on the negative, because he agrees that it is the patient's choice to die and we can not interfere and if his choice is wrong (due to his bad psychological condition) we still cannot prevent a wrong action because it is the patient's choice. Therefore, extend this point. > The law my opponent is proposing (consulting two doctors) is not practical. First of all it would be huge waste of man hours to have two doctors to supervise a patient that is most probably going to die anyway. This is especially true in crowded hospital, were other patients that have a better chance for their lives to be saved need care and the doctors usually aren't enough. > Finally, I ask my opponent to present his proposed law so we can discuss it. "We can get multiple opinions like I said. The more people involved the less corrupt it will be. There is a workable solution to this issue without banning euthanasia." > My opponent's claim of 2 doctors has already been addressed as a non-realistic solution. >My opponent respond to this point by repeating his previous point and stating that there also solutions, that he does not present. > I ask my opponent to present his solution(s), so it can be discussed. "My opponent is incorrect. The whole purpose of philosophy is to disprove theories and find new ones. The goal of a philosopher is to seek the truth. Utilitarianism is a superior theory, as not following it would result in more bad than good occurring. It is common sense to say that we should have as much good as possible. That's basically what utilitarianism says." Philosophy: The pursuit of wisdom and truth based on logic and opinion (translated from a Greek Dictionary) > False. A superior philosophy is simply based on personal opinion and logic for example you may think that utilitarianism is logical while another person may think that deontological ethics are logical. My opponent states that it is the goal of the philosopher to seek the truth; this is true, however (based on the definition of philosophy provided above) they seek the truth based on their own logic and opinion that is why most philosophies contradict each other. > Utitilitariansm is a moral philosophy that proposes a certain course of action in an ethical dilemma. In an ethical dilemma, you know the consequences of action or inaction and you must chose massed on moral philosophies or other criterions between action and inaction. While in the case of Euthanasia different circumstances have different consequences and an accurate prediction of the consequences is not usually possible. For example a person might avoid pain by being subjected to Euthanasia, but he/she can at the same lose his his/her last days that would be happy or he/she would miraculously survive and therefore death caused more pain and stopped happiness. Since the conseque