To be decided in this debate

org for making this debate possible. Now to the actual debate: My opponent first says that candidates for euthanasia must fulfill five criteria and then goes on to list only four. I agree with the idea behind these four criteria that must be filled in order to be lawfully euthanized. However, I have negative speculations as to whether or not these regulations and the other safeguards my opponent has quoted are being practically carried out. >>> [Common things physicians do] include presenting patients with the option for palliative care. <<< This, however, according to my opponent, is not a requirement of the physician. I have read my opponent's reference for his post and found some interesting things. (including the fact that the article isn't promoting euthanasia) There is a woman named Helen who insists on being euthanized (an easily recognizable sign of irrational motives). The physician halfheartedly attempts to talk her out of it, suggesting chemotherapy and hormone therapy to alleviate pain and stall progression of the cancer in her lungs. He never refers a doctor more knowledgeable on the subject or tries more than once to dissuade her. How can we morally and ethically accept euthanasia if this occurs? He then states in an article to the British journal "Lancet" that reluctance to disappoint Helen's family and embarrassment of backing out were important motives in his decision to comply with Helen's requests of euthanasia. It is not ethically right for euthanasia to be requisite of a physician's emotions. This takes the decision to die out of the patients hands and thus makes the physician less likely to feasibly present alternatives to assisted suicide. Later on in the article, another physician, more adept at providing alternatives managed to help a patient better control pain and her desire to be euthanized disappeared and she died peacefully and naturally. This could be done with most candidates for euthanasia. In fact, nearly half (46%) of the patients who received feasible alternatives and pain management from their physicians changed their mind about Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) >>> [Common things physicians do is to] "ensure the voluntariness of the request" <<< However, there are no monitoring regulations to actually make sure and enforce that this is accomplished and Oregon is taking no measures to improve this. As we can see in the case of Kate(euthanasia candidate) and Erika(sister), coercion can play a large role in the patients "voluntary" request. First off, assisted suicide is much cheaper than prolonged care for terminally ill patients. Secondly, Erika and her husband had the burden of caring for Kate in their home during the duration of her illness. After a while Erika and her husband needed a break from the constant care of Kate and sent her temporarily to a nursing home. They said it would only be for a week. It turned out to be considerably longer than a week and when Kate returned to the house she was under the impression that she was a burden to her family. Instead of reassuring Kate that they cared deeply about her and would do anything to ease the burden of her terminal illness they said "when will you take them? " when Kate suggested using the killing drugs. This is what I was talking about when I talked about the patient's "duty to die. " Then in response to my comment about how euthanasia is not always painless my opponent said: "This has nothing to do with the ethical aspect" I think it has a huge relevance as to whether euthanasia is ethically acceptable. It seems crazy to end pain by causing pain. If my opponent thinks deliberately causing pain has no moral repercussions he is sadly mistaken. >>> And citing Belgium as an example isn't great, since our medical technology and safeguards are of a much higher standard. <<< This is simply not true. This is a quote from . https://www.cia.gov... regarding Belgium. "The country prospered in the past half century as a modern, technologically advanced European state and member of NATO and the EU. " This doesn't sound very much to me like the third-world, technologically lacking ancient society my opponent is hinting at. Then my opponent says the slippery slope problem is a fallacy. However it is already happening in Belgium. Belgium now sells over the counter "Euthanasia packs" to anyone who wants them. Before this happened Belgium had nearly the exact same set of laws that Oregon had. ====================================================== Now I'm going to post some more original reasons why Euthanasia should not be morally embraced. 1. ) I think it is refreshing that neither me nor my opponent has yet involved religion as a reason to oppose or accept euthanasia. However I feel it is necessary for it to be given consideration. Generally, Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Jews all consider euthanasia as a grave sin. This would be a huge moral hurdle to euthanasia. 2. ) There was a case I read about on . http://euthanasia.procon.org... in which there was a Swedish woman who wished to be euthanized. She was in severe psychological pain but not physical pain. As her execution date neared, her mental pain increased greatly and she developed actual physical pains to double the sorrow. She was televised as she was killed. If she had been taken care of and put on pain management programs I believe her will to be killed would have gone away. I hope you can see through my argument the moral problems with euthanasia and vote con. Thank you TheSkeptic for a very interesting and challenging debate.