People have the right to be euthanized.

My opponent starts off their argument with a bare assertion. They state that "one's life belongs to one's own person. " While this line sounds good it is unsupported. It is not like humans my opponent created their own life. Then they again assert that "people must be free to live (and die) as they please. To suggest otherwise means one's own life ought to be dictated by other people. " Before I go on, I am going to establish something my opponent didn't do. I am going to establish where rights come from. The founding fathers of the United States believed in a God. Many of them were Christian and some were deists. For example: The founding fathers of the United States believe that rights were endowed by a God. It was Thomas Jefferson that wrote that rights were endowed by God in his Declaration of Independence. a. In a 1794 letter to the Massachusetts Legislature, Samuel Adams wrote, "In the supposed state of nature, all men are equally bound by the laws of nature, or to speak more properly, the laws of the Creator" b. John Adams said "Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God . .. What a Utopia, what a Paradise would this region be. " c. John Hancock said "Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. . .. Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us. " d. Benjamin Franklin said "Here is my Creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His Providence. That He ought to be worshiped. " Thomas Jefferson represented these men well when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. He wrote that rights were endowed by a creator. And that is where rights come from. From a constitutional standpoint, euthanasia is not directly supported, but the right to life is. Since they didn't include the supposed "right to kill yourself," and there is the fact that the included the "right to life", we can conclude that they did not believe that the right to be killed was endowed by God. And the same is pretty much true today. Euthanasia is still not legal in the United States (. https://en.wikipedia.org...) except for in four states. Now, my opponent then asserts that there are exceptions to the rule about dictating other peoples lives. And it is incredibly ironic. Apparently, we can't tell people that they can't kill themselves due to the fact that we would be violating their bodily autonomy. But according to my opponent, the exception to violating someones bodily autonomy "includes fetuses before a certain stage of development, living persons in a vegetative state, and people so terminally ill that they will assuredly die. " What a blatant double standard. My opponent is allowed to determine the lives of fetuses and ill people but I cannot tell a person that they cannot kill themselves because it would somehow violate their supposed right to kill themselves (which my opponent has not yet objectively established as an actual right). So now I ask my opponent, "Can they objectively establish that humans have a right to be euthanized or did they just make it up? " And now I also ask my opponent, "What makes a human life meaningful? " They claim that "Those people's lives can be ended through non-voluntary euthanasia in good conscience, as their 'personhood' status would be challenged given certain criteria of personhood (they lack consciousness) and therefore their legal right to life is no longer recognized. " But they haven't explained why the people who lack consciousness are no longer persons/humans. I disagree with them. A person is not valuable because of their thoughts, feelings, or etc. A person could be brain dead and people would still treat the person as a person. So the personhood is not dependent on the things that a person can do, it is actually based on ontology. I don't see how a person very ill would be considered a non-human. My opponent has to start explaining. .. My opponent then asks "If we logically 'put down' animals to ease their pain and soften transition to death, why exclude human beings from the same consideration? It is selfish to dictate how another person lives or dies if they are not harming anyone but themselves by choice. " My opponent seems to put humans as being morally equal with animals. Animals do not have morals; humans do. I can;t even imagine why my opponent would make such a comparison. My opponent also seems to think that a person murdering themselves doesn't harm anyone which is just completely false. It hurts family members, it harms themselves, and it is all pointless since an eternity awaits them. Whether you believe in a God or not, an eternity still awaits those who die. So why kill yourselves when you have an infinite amount of time to "rest? " My opponent then asserts that "not allowing people in tremendous pain to opt out is cruel. It presumes that an outsider understands what the patient is feeling and undermines their desires out of selfish and culturally biased values. " Murder is also cruel I might add. It doesn't solve anything except help people get rid of decaying life that they don't want to look at anymore. My opponent says that "If people want to die they will find a way to die. It's morally sound to make their death as painless as possible. " The logic here is not sound. Just because people are going to do something anyway, that doesn't mean we should legalize the action. Just because people will rape each other anyway do to our evil nature, that doesn't mean we should legalize rape. My opponent argues that "They know to make each day count and feel totally in control of how the rest of their life will proceed. This is an invaluable emotional and spiritual gift that almost rivals the gift of physical health. After all, most of us probably hope to die peacefully and painlessly one day since death is inevitable for us all. " Nobody will ever feel totally in control of their lives. You can't control what happened in the job market, you can't control terrorists and etc. .. And the fact that death is certain to happen is all the more reason to not kill yourselves and to use all the time you have to do good. The final argument my opponent made was about the costs. While it is true that it can be expensive to keep a person alive, I think my opponent said it well when they said that "you cannot put a price on life. " Although, they ironically went against their own statement. I however am going to stick with it. In conclusion, my opponent has not established where rights come from and I am of the opinion that this is extremely important. That is what the whole debate comes to. If my opponent cannot objectively establish the right to die, then they loose. Their opinion on this matter is not a good enough reason to legalize euthanasia.