Issue nr. 3

Euthanasia should be illegal because it can lead to abuse. Or should it?

No, it shouldn't. The right to life is fundamental and inalienable. This means that each individual does with his life whatever he wants. This includes ending it whenever he wishes to. The doctor who performs the deed does not violate the patient's rights, because the patient gave the doctor his consent (see issue nr. 1 for more details). The reasons which stand behind the patient's decision are his problem. This extends the issue beyond the necessity for the patient to be terminally ill. He doesn't even have to be ill, or a patient. If the doctor (or anybody else for that matter) is crazy enough to do it to a healthy human being and he has his consent, nobody and nothing should stand in their way.

Can this lead to abuse? No. In all cases of this type, it is the responsibility of the doctor to take all the necessary precautions to prove later on that he had the patient's consent. This includes signatures, witnesses, videos, etc. If all these prove that the consent has been given, the patient's rights were not violated and the doctor goes home free. If not, he goes to prison. As mentioned in issue nr. 2, the doctor does not have a duty to the patient to terminate his life, he does this for his own reasons, whether personal, medical or ethical, but he may choose not to do it.

This issue is believed to be a problem because of the wrong moral standard. People tend to believe that they can decide what is good or bad for others. In this case the general belief is that life is supreme and a person cannot take the decision to end it for any reasons. The roots of this is in religion where life is given and owned by God, went on to the times when the Kings owned the lives of their people, because of the divine origin of the King, then there came the time when white people owned the lives of black people, because for some reason white skin is superior to black skin, and it ends today when all lives belong to the society, because of its unlimited majority rule. The day when people get to grasp the idea that fundamental principles are not subject to public voting, that the right to life is by definition an individual right and that life is not a common good, that is the day when I go out, take a breath of fresh air and say to myself "I am free!"

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