Why is euthanasia so controversial?

[FGFlann]

I don't believe that it would be fair to say that nobody outside the states cares about abortion, or that a general acceptance of it amongst the public precludes them from also holding a view on the ethics of the procedure. Just because it is tolerated does not mean it is liked, and it is still a criminal offence in Britain under certain circumstances after all.

I am gratified that such thorough checks are undertaken in places that permit assisted suicide. I don't doubt their efficacy, especially in cases of extreme suffering, but as a general principle under the scenario laid out by @Boesy, where euthanasia would be utilized as a general method of ending someone's life, I would be significantly more worried about it being misused.

 

[FAST6191]

I don't believe that it would be fair to say that nobody outside the states cares about abortion, or that a general acceptance of it amongst the public precludes them from also holding a view on the ethics of the procedure. Just because it is tolerated does not mean it is liked, and it is still a criminal offence in Britain under certain circumstances after all.

I am gratified that such thorough checks are undertaken in places that permit assisted suicide. I don't doubt their efficacy, especially in cases of extreme suffering, but as a general principle under the scenario laid out by @Boesy, where euthanasia would be utilized as a general method of ending someone's life, I would be significantly more worried about it being misused.

Outside the US then nowhere else seriously has a push for getting rid of it, cares if the tax payer funds in the case of tax payer healthcare countries, or the thing where they suffocate places offering abortions (though that place is usually just a hospital) in red tape. If you ever see a protest outside one it is because they likely failed to offer one to someone that needed it, malpractice or have not yet adopted the nice new stuff (some of the chemical options these days do very well).
Said offences are reasonably generous age gates, and obviously lack of consent on the part of the carrier.

That said this is probably getting off topic and we have a long abortion thread or two around here somewhere anyway.

 

[FGFlann]

I don't wish to harp on the point, either. I'm content to leave it at that.

 

[smf]

Same difference as how in some ways I am not supposed to give medication, however in the purest functional sense (though not in the eyes of the law) handing someone some pills and having them swallow them.

It's very different handing someone something that will kill them compared to actually killing them.

Plenty of doctors and nurses already do it. Can be everything from failing to treat a chest infection (oh dear now they have pneumonia) to more active measures, to pushing nice pain meds beyond what is "safe" for someone in that condition and oh dear they entered respiratory failure. As most medics about about minimising suffering it tends not to be so bad.

It affects some of them to the point where they start performing mercy killings.

It doesn't really fit in with the Hippocratic oath & it's almost as if the doctors who are willing to euthanize are exactly the ones that shouldn't be allowed to.

The debate about abortion mainly exists in the US, Ireland and possibly Poland. Most other places in the world don't care, and even then it is only part of the US that really cares.

Abortion is a completely different topic, it sits way outside our delusional sense of society. I don't think it really should be included in a discussion about someone choosing to end their own life.

As for verification then we already see fairly robust checks in place where they have it. It varies but you tend to need the signatures of a few doctors on the nature of your disease, and what sort of recovery as well as remaining life's quality of life*. There will often be a cooldown period as well.

So quite easy to manipulate then, just pay off a couple of doctors & a bit of brainwashing required.

 

[FAST6191]

Does the law see a distinction? If I were to take my chemistry skills and cook up something fun and give that to someone is the CPS likely to say "ah nah, all good mate, you couldn't have known"?

I can't say I see it that way. Watch enough people grind along in agony for days, or watch a clueless "loved one" intubate someone that will never get off it more than a few times and it changes things.

Are doctors that easy to pay off around you? Most qualified medics I know get paid reasonably well, and have put enough time and effort into becoming a medic that throwing it all away (to say nothing of serious legal sanctions for that kind of malpractice), mean that is way way way easier said than done.

 

[Taleweaver]

Politicians against it usually say "A child can determine to take his/her life away!" or "Someone depressed could attempt to quit living." Those two are at least the most popular ones albeit not very logical or valid.

First, a child cannot make decisions for him or herself, that's why you have parents to take care of hopefully making the right decisions. And two, there's a lot of people who say "I'm depressed!" on the internet, but they're actually just bored out of their minds while the clinically depressed don't care to tell others nor do they show off their disorder as it is embarrassing for them to admit (maybe some don't mind confessing).

My stance personally? I'm basically fine with it as long as it's all done correctly. You know, people could die in any way, but by euthanasia they can tell their loved ones the final goodbye and go out peacefully than in a forest, or jump off a bridge, or in front of a train, or a car crash, etc.

Hmm...it seems to me you're boiling down their stances a bit too much. I don't disagree with the summary, but it's too short for a topic this emotionally loaded.

There's an euthanasia debate in Belgium right now (you may want to google "Tine Nys", though I'm not sure how much you can find in English). The gist is that after she died in 2010, her family put charges against those who did it. The reason: they claim that there were still possibilities for treatment left unexplored, thus countering the argument of the agreement of the euthanasia (it was granted because she had "uitzichtloos psychisch lijden", which I guess translates best as "psychical suffering without chance to recover").
The result: almost ten years after the deed, the participants were acquitted (well...for now: the family explores further prosecution ("cassatie", of which I have no idea how to translate) ).


I have to admit this muddles with my personal stance. It's one thing to be fine with it as long as it's done correctly, but exactly who's going to help you with it if anyone even remotely trying to assist you can be charged with murder? Killing yourself seems like a relatively simple thing to do until you start to think of consequences. Throw yourself under a train? That'll traumatize the train conductor. Jump off a building? You don't want to shock passers-by. And so on. So a humane way would be nice, but...I gotta admit I don't really know a decent way to actually DO it (pills would be nice, but it's the same problem as with an injection: you can't just have them lingering around, but NOT having them linger around means you need assistance from medical staff...who might be prosecuted afterwards).

Because once you normalize letting people decide to end their own life, eventually someone comes up with reasons why the government gets to make the decision for them.

People already decide to end their own life. It was never not normalized.

 

[FGFlann]

Saying it's normalized is a huge overstatement. Everyone has the ability to do so, but the stigma against the concept of suicide is enormous in all the world's ideologies and codes of law.