Euthanasia should be legal

You make some very good arguments, I'll try my best to counter them! I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying in regards to the intrinsic/extrinsic social valuing of life. I am not saying that we should keep people alive because we can construe purpose for their lives, I am saying that as a society we should preserve life because it is life, irrespective of the presence of purpose. On a society-wide level, legalising euthanasia establishes that life is only valuable insofar as it is desired, which would make it extrinsic. This is a poisonous attitude to any civil society as it does not respect the human individual, only what they can do or provide. "Why are you so hung up on making this person want to be alive?" Because it is a loving action to do, helping someone find enjoyment in life is a better solution than killing them. I am arguing that it would be a negative step to allow people to choose to die when they wish. People may currently hate their existence on earth but death is permanent, once you are euthanised there is no going back. Honestly I find it hard to imagine that someone depressed enough to be feeling suicidal has the right mental capacity to make such a huge and irreversible choice. If someone is so depressed that they don't want to live anymore, then we should help them change their mind and see the endless potential that life has. As Jules Verne said, 'where there is life there is hope', death is the ultimate way to 'give up' which seems irrational in a world where medical science is advancing so rapidly that cures for seemingly incurable illnesses could just be months away at any given time. I'm sure that Stephen Hawking, when he first descended into invalidity, often decided that he would rather die than live with with ALS. If euthanasia had been legal he could have very possibly been killed and the world would have lost one of the greatest physicists of the century. "However having the option to end your life instead of seek treatment isn't going to cause every single sick person to off themselves." Of course, not everyone will choose to be euthanised. But in the Netherlands it is increasingly becoming the norm for cancer sufferers to seek euthanasia instead of fighting through it (1). People with serious illnesses generally aren't particularly optimistic, and many people will be killed by euthanasia whereas if it was not an option they could have survived and lived fulfilling lives, despite them not even considering a good outcome when they were in the depths of their suffering. "With the medicine we have today, we're able to contain the virus or bacteria or whatever outside of the host's body, so even without a person with the virus, we're still able to conduct tests and research on it." True, but there would be little motivation to do so. If it became normal to be euthanised when suffering from a deadly disease then it would seem less important to find cures. Why is this? Because the point of a cure is to prevent death. If people are asking for death when suffering from said disease, what is the point in finding a cure when many people are content to do without? "If people become less affected by suicide, then good. The way society is evolving is in such a way that moral values should be logically thought out before acting upon them. The death of a loved one will always be upsetting, however if we know they chose this path, and aren't suffering anymore, there should be no logical reason to be upset about it." Suicide is one of the most tragic things that exists in this world; that someone can become so depressed and despairing that they decide to destroy their life. It is logical to assert the immorality of suicide because if it was not, depressed people will not feel obstructed to end their life, despite depression being temporary and mentally-incapacitating to the extent that they cannot be responsible for such a huge decision, which suicide is. I very much doubt that you could find a single person who considered suicide, changed their mind and regretted doing so. Sexual consent is only valid when the partner is in the right mental capacity, so why should suicide-consent be different? On a metaphysical scale, it is also an assumption that death is preferable to suffering whilst alive. The experience of death (or lack thereof) is eschatologically verifiable; so how then can suicide or euthanasia be an informed decision when we only know what one of the alternatives is like? "they wouldn't have helped society anyway. They're happy and we lost someone who didn't want to help us anyway" That is what I was saying in round 1, legalising euthanasia makes people value human life simply because of the value or help they provide to society, not simply because it is life and is good in and of itself. "Keep in mind with your example and others like it, that it wouldn't be euthanasia that caused her death. It would be her own choice. She wants to now, she would want to if euthanasia was legalised. If you say she does bring great joy to her family, I'm sure she would be able to gain their acceptance of her choice if she does decide to end it all. Also, this may be very selfish on our behalf, as we expect the elderly to suffer and dislike their existence simply so we can benefit from their knowledge." The thing is, she goes through a few weeks feeling suicidal, but then recovers and lives life happily for a few months. If we acted upon her cognitively-doubtful decision when she was depressed then she would be deprived of all the happiness she gets when not under the influence of mental illness. Ultimately, euthanasia is far too big a choice to be assumed to be rationally made by people who are mentally sick. "Also, judging by how The Netherlands have legalised euthanasia, the elderly wouldn't be able to end it all simply because they're old. There would need to be a lot more going on." Yes, they wouldn't be able to end their life simply due to old age, but the vast majority of old people have some ailment or another that could be exploited to justify them seeking to end their life out of martyrdom. "As you can see in The Netherlands, euthanasia is legal and regulated, with several heavy requirements to follow through [1]. The point that stands out for me is #5 - There must be no other reasonable solutions to the problem. This implies that if a "cure" is available, or if it is possible to continue medical research and procedures on the subject, the chance of being accepted for euthanizing is significantly lower. I'm sure we would see similar laws if euthanasia is legalised in North America." Theoretically the law works satisfactorily, but evidence would suggest that the Netherlands is sliding down a slippery slope towards more liberal euthanasia laws. (2) This source suggests that we cannot ring-fence voluntary euthanasia killings without overflows into non-voluntary euthanasia. The simple fact is that doctors are only human; giving them the extraordinary power to grant others life and death does not make them into responsible moral agents. Doctors are physicians not ethicists and cannot be relied upon to relate to suicidal people's wishes and inclinations because they simply aren"t trained for it. This is why in the Netherlands doctors are increasingly being persuaded by relatives and patients to bend the rules or even outright break them, because doctors aren"t professionally endowed to judge non-medical issues. Continuing on the subject of doctors, to ask them to kill patients is to violate the Hippocratic Oath, the vow that maintains the integrity of their whole profession. When people train to be doctors they say that they want to save lives, not destroy them. (1) http://www.mercatornet.com... (2)http://www.bioethics.org.au...