## Key Terms 1
* "eu" (good) + "thanatos" (death)
* Tension between taking innocent life and avoiding agony
### Key Terms 2
* Voluntary euthanasia (decided by patient, i.e., suicide)
* Nonvoluntary euthanasia (decided by kin)
* Involuntary euthanasia (decided by another, i.e., murder)
### Key Terms 3
* Active -- "Mercy killing" -- through lethal drug
* Passive -- unplugging respirator or withholding fluids
* Active is generally illegal, and medical assocations oppose it
* Passive is generally legal, either voluntary or nonvoluntary (e.g., comatose)
### Key Terms 4
* "Doctrine of Double Effect" -- Intend A to bring about B and C vs. intend A to bring about B but not C, even though it is possible to predict C will come about.
### Brock: Is euthanasia morally defensible?
1. Death is scary and painful
2. Deciding when to die is one's autonomous choice
5. So should the law stop people from getting help from their physician?
6. And does morality prevent the physician from helping?
Thesis: Although it seems that euthanasia is murder or suicide, voluntary active euthanasia is morally permissible due to values of self-determination (or autonomy) and well-being, and should be legally allowed
### Arguments:
1. Deciding when to die allows one to "avoid great suffering, maintain one's dignity, insure that others remember us as we wish them to" (763)
1. Well-being conflicts with autonomy, because autonomy presupposes being alive -- response: it is possible to judge that one's own life is no longer worth living.
2. Clinical depression can "call into question whether the patient has made a competent choice" -- safeguards must be in place.
### Objections:
3. Euthanasia is the deliberate killing of an innocent person
4. Response: Killing is just as bad as letting die, which is legal and sometimes permissible
### The ALS case.
- If the patient wishes to be unplugged from a respirator, this is not murder or suicide, just 'letting her die'.
- If the patient's son unplugs her, it is murder (even though he merely 'let her die')
- The difference is consent, legal authorization, and motive
### The Drowning case
- You can't swim. We're on a boat. If I push you in, that's "killing."
- You can't swim. We're on a boat. You fall in. I don't throw you a life ring. That's "killing."
### Objection 2
1. The bad consequences of legalizing euthanasia outweigh the good
2. Response: No firm data on consequences, so we have to weigh likelihoods
### Potential Benefits
- Netherlands: 14,500,000 people, 1,900 euthanasia cases (0.0001%)
- Those who don't use the right to euthanasia might still feel better having it as "insurance"
- Suffering patients will be released sooner (mercy)
### Potential Detriments
- Doctors would have to, or be permitted, to kill
- "The very soul of medicine is on trial... if physicians become killers or are even licensed to kill, the profession will never again be worthy of trust and respect as healer..."
- Response: physicians must also respect patient wishes
### Potential Detriments
- Weaken society's commitment to provide optimal care for dying patients
- Response: Only a small percentage of deaths will be by euthanasia anyway
### Potential Detriments
- Threaten patient rights to decide to refuse life-sustaining treatment. These rights have many complex legal safeguards in place, in large part, to prevent euthanasia.
- Even more numerous and complex court cases could result from legalizing euthanasia
- Response: Safeguards can be designed
### Potential Detriments
- David Velleman: euthanasia changes the 'default' or 'given' from staying alive to the choice between life and death.
- "Why are you alive?" needs no answer, it's a given
- "Why are you alive?" in a euthanasia society, is a question that demands an answer
- Analogy: boys swimming in the river
### Potential Detriments
- Weaken general prohibition against homicide
- Response: slippery slope
### Reflections:
1. Suicide is already "legal". Asking for someone else to help you is not. Legalizing euthanasia would make some murders legally permitted... and incentivized.
### Question:
- Is there a moral difference between killing and letting die?
- Is that difference present in euthanasia discussions?
### Discussion
* What is purpose of morality?
### Discussion
* Your questions?
## Critique of Euthanasia
## Thesis
Although it seems that letting die is an acceptable form of "passive euthanasia", all euthanasia is inherently wrong and has negative consequences.
### Key Words
- Euthanasia is killing, intentionally
- Letting die is not "passive" euthanasia; it's not euthanasia at all
- Death as a consequence of treatment is not euthanasia, because not intentional
### Natural Law of Life
- All human beings incline toward life
- All organisms and even cells are "structured for survival"
- Anything that does violence to this natural goal of survival is bad
- Euthanasia does violence to this natura goal of survival
- Euthanasia is bad
### Supernatural Law of Life
- God owns everything, including my body
- I am a steward or trustee of my body
- I cannot take my own life without stealing
### Self-Interest
- Pragmatic or prudential or consequential arguments can support the intrinsic argument
- Mistaken diagnosis is possible, so euthanasia could be used as a 'last resort' when it is not in fact the as resort
- Experimental procedures could work
- Spontaneous remission occurs
- People might give up too soon, or weaken their resolve, if they know death is an option
- People might choose euthanasia co-dependently
### Practical Effects
- Doctors and nurses are committed to saving lives
- Euthanasia might make death less of a failure
- Doctors and nurses might treat some patients as 'better of dead'
- Hopelessly ill persons can take their own life, deputize others to do so -- some might act on others' behalf _without_ authorization
- Analogy to 'mental illness' (i.e., something we disapprove of). The definition of a 'hopelessly ill' can expand
### Reflections
- Is your view on these topics consistent?
- Permit/promote or forbid/restrict?
- (1) Pro-choice, euthanasia, revenge, suicide (assisted or otherwise), capital punishment, contraception, human cloning, human sterilization, embryonic stem cell and fetal research, LGBT, promiscuity, infidelity, and divorce.
- (2) Pro-life, anti-euthanasia, forgiveness, life, prison, fertility, no-cloning, no stem-cell, heterosexual monogamy, chastity, fidelity, and marriage
What do they have in common?
### Discussion
* Your questions?