Assisted Suicide Arguments Against Euthanasia

However, opposition to assisted dying are concerned about a slippery slope, where patient’s choices could be abused. Beyond the opposition to assisted dying based on concerns about potential abuse is the threat of the so-called slippery slope. According to opposition’s theory, legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide would be followed by non-voluntary euthanasia, involving patients whose current personal desires could not be evaluated due to pressure from family or financial circumstance or believe that patient is burden on society. From there it would be a short step to involuntary euthanasia, where death is forced upon people who understand the circumstance and do not want to die. This practice may permit even the most limited forms

129)In this extreme form it is surely groundless, given the values that prevail in our society. As Ezekiel Emanuel puts it, “Euthanasia and assisted suicide are socially disastrous. They are not containable by placing legal limits on their practice. Arguments to the contrary, the slippery slope is an inescapable, logical, psychological, historical and empirical reality” (Emanuel, 1997, Physician-Assisted Suicide section, para. 2). However, we cannot deny the truth that the family of a patient hope for assisted death because they love him, and wish that he didn’t have to suffer from the disease. Moreover, the families who have witnessed a family member’s death in severe agony already suffer a sense of despair and powerlessness. Additionally, should the care for patients with a terminal illness be allowed to bankrupt families or cause severe

However, to prolong the patients’ lives without the possibility of revival is just to inflict the pain. If such a delayed time means the prolongation of pain, the prolongation just leads to obstructing the dignity of human, and to depriving the right to choose death. Euthanasia is an extremely difficult moral decision that should be made along with doctors and their families (Campbell & Cox, 2010, p. 56). Moreover, one of the ironies of modern medicine is that it extends our life spans enormously, and reduces early death. The extended period is including the dying process. It is not homicide. It just allows the patient to die when the life span has properly finished. Many patients fear that they will be kept alive with pain by modern medicines. On that account, when people face up to death, they should have the right to control their fates, including the right to