Assisted Suicide Should Be Legalized for those that are mentally stable and suffering

Framework By opponent brings up the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. He claims that those wishing to perform an assisted suicide upon themselves are not in a correct state of mind. This is a semantics arguments and contradicts the full resolution of the debate. It states that an assisted suicide should only be performed only when the patient is suffering. Therefore, my framework still stands since it has not been properly addressed. Defense 1: Right To Die Again, my opponent fails to understand the full resolution. My opponent claims that people who seek an assisted suicide are not in the correct state of mind (again). The resolution specifically states that I am only advocating the legalization of assisted suicide for the mentally stable, suffering and terminally ill. My opponent is failing to understand that I agree that assisted suicide should not be allowed for those in the wrong state of mind. This is not a concession because as previously stated, my burden requires me to prove that assisted suicide should only be legalized for the mentally stable. I also agree that we need to protect those in the wrong state of mind otherwise society will crumble but this is besides the purpose of this debate as clearly stated in the full resolution provided in R1. My opponent continues by reiterating voluntary and involuntary euthanasia. The problem with this is the same problem that I had in my rebuttals. This argument does not stand, it argues for euthanasia instead of assisted suicide. I provided a case which I will repeat here (this is not a new argument): ““In Oregon USA it has been legal for terminally ill, mentally competent adults to have an assisted death for 18 years. In those 18 years there have been no cases of abuse and no calls to extend the law beyond terminally ill adults. ”” The key words here are: no cases of abuse. This evidently shows us that if in 18 years there have been no cases of abuse there are clearly differences between euthanasia and assisted suicide. I will now reiterate the difference between assisted suicide and euthanasia, and why they matter. In assisted suicide the patient ultimately kills themselves. In euthanasia the doctor kills the patient. It is evident that it is easier to be killed by a doctor than to be made to kill yourself by a doctor. In euthanasia a doctor can feel as if it is their duty to kill the patient who is terminally ill. The patient is unable to stop them or have any choice in the decision. In assisted suicide the patient kills themselves so the doctor cannot simply kill them because this would be a violation of the definitions. In order for this example to work my opponent must be referring to the scenarios in which doctors may force the patient to kill themselves. This is highly illogical because the much easier alternative that can be made is to just kill the patient themselves (ie. through euthanasia). Since we are not debating the morality and logic in euthanasia this rebuttal is invalid. Defense 2: Hippocratic Oath This isn’t a particularly long rebuttal however I will still address it. In this contention, my opponent refers to the : Holicaust’ I assume that he means Holocaust, so I will assume this especially because of the Nazi references. I do not support the acts of the Nazis in any way and this a big misunderstanding made by my opponent. Firstly, the Nazis did not ask for consent. Secondly, the Nazis didn’t necessarily know if they were terminally ill or suffering - they just executed the homeless and ill generally. Secondly, this is technically another reference to euthanasia. In assisted suicide the terminally ill person provides consent and ultimately kills themselves. I doubt that the Nazis made the patients kill themselves. My opponent supports this by saying that the Nazis executed the sick and homeless. Execution is very different to assisted suicide by definition. I will now define execution to remove any confusion: “Execution is the carrying out of a sentence of death on a condemned person. ” Now let us compare this to assisted suicide: “Assisted Suicide is the act of a medically trained professional deliberately providing assistance to help somebody to willingly kill themselves (commit suicide). ” This is very different as we can clearly see. The patient kills themselves in assisted suicide and therefore it is extremely rare to find cases of involuntary assisted suicide occurring and that may be the reason as to why examples of involuntary euthanasia instead of assisted suicide. I will not address the Kant argument that has been reiterated again because it is clear that the patient must be in the correct state of mind before making the decision (as stated in the resolution). Defense 3 - 4: Religious Concerns and Living wills My opponent brings up the ‘Kant Irrationality Argument’ again. The patient must be in the correct state of mind (as proposed in the R1 resolution). I will now show that irrationality does not make sense for the negative case since it evidently cannot be argued per the rules, resolution and definitions in R1. I will now present the definition of mentally stable (as stated in R1): “Mentally stable is when you are able to make a justified and [informed] decision without any problems that are affecting your thought processing and frame of mind. ” I will now highlight that the definition of mentally stable includes the words ‘justified decision. ’ This is important because we will now observe whether or not this coincides with the definition of mentally stable which was presented in R1. I will present the definition of rationality but add edits in brackets [example]. “[Ir]rationality is the quality or state of being [un]reasonable, based on [no] facts or reason [at all]. ” I have done this since the definition of irrationality contains the word rationality on multiple occasions which basically meant that the definition of irrationality would have been: ‘not rational’. Since dictionary. com refers to rationality and irrationality as being antonyms (opposites), this means that turning the definition of rationality into a negative is a reasonable change. The term unreasonable is a synonym to unjustified on dictionary. com and therefore this does not coincide with the definitions stated in R1. The definition of mentally stable specifically states that you must be able to make a : ‘justified decision’ and unjustified is the opposite of this. Defense 5: Social Groups at Risk of abuse I don’t want to go into too much detail on this since I have addressed it all before. Assisted suicide is not as dangerous as euthanasia for reasons explained in further detail in my first rebuttal. Minorities will not be eradicated because they would have to be killing themselves. Sources The only sources that I have used in this round will be for definitions. Due to the character limit I will link dictionary. com which is where my comparison arguments come from. The rest of my definitions that do not refer to dictionary. com can be checked by simply researching: defintiion of __.