The Pros And Cons Of Euthanasia

The Hippocratic Oath states that “I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel”. Euthanasia is where someone intentionally kills a person whose life is felt not to be worth living. It is definitely a controversial topic with many opinions on whether or not it should be legalized.

Euthanasia should be illegal because it goes against the sanctity of life, de-vaules human life, and it violates the Hippocratic oath in which doctors must take.

There’s an argument on if euthanasia opposes the sanctity of life. Euthanasia has caused society to lose the respect for the sanctity of life. According to bbc.com, “There are four main reasons why people think we shouldn't kill human beings: All human beings are to be valued, irrespective of age, sex, race, religion, social status or their potential for achievement. Human life is a basic good as opposed to an instrumental good, a good in itself rather than as a means to an end. Human life is sacred because it's a gift from God. Therefore the deliberate taking of human life should be prohibited except in self-defence or the legitimate defence of others. The philosopher Immanuel Kant said that rational human beings should be treated as an end in themselves and not as a means to something else. The fact that we are human has value in itself. Our inherent value doesn't depend on anything else - it doesn't depend on whether we are having a good life that we enjoy, or whether we are making other people's lives better. We exist, so we have value. Most of us agree with that - though we don't put it in philosopher-speak. We say that we don't think that we should use other people - which is a plain English way of saying that we shouldn't treat other people as a means...

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...ongs--with God, not doctors.”

Many assume that euthanasia would be at the patient’s request, but that is untrue. According to patientsrightscouncil.org, “As one of their major goals, euthanasia proponents seek to have euthanasia and assisted suicide considered ‘medical treatment’. If one accepts the notion that euthanasia or assisted suicide is a good medical treatment, then it would not only be inappropriate, but discriminatory, to deny this good treatment to a person solely because that person is too young or mentally incapacitated to request it. In the United States, a surrogate’s decision is often treated, for legal purposes, as if the patient had made it. That means that, if euthanasia is legal, a court challenge could result in a finding that a surrogate could make a request for death on behalf of a child or an adult who doesn’t have decision-making capacity.”