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Should euthanasia be legal?
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Legal euthanasia could be easily abused

Proponents of legalizing euthanasia cannot guarantee that the practice wouldn't be abused.
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The Argument

Legal euthanasia is bound to be abused in many different ways. Patients could be pressured by their families to make the decision because of a financial cost of a patient’s illness or because of financial incentive like an inheritance. The state could also use euthanasia as a political tool to get rid of society’s “undesirables” under the guise of medical help. Additionally, there is no guarantee that no physicians would abuse their power.

Counter arguments

The potential for abuse is overstated by opponents of legal euthanasia; there are safeguards in place to prevent such events from happening, like the mental evaluation of a patient. The reality of legal euthanasia in places like the Netherlands, Belgium or state of Oregon shows that the fears of abuse are unfounded.

Premises

[P1] Legal euthanasia means a death of a person. [P2] There might exist entities or people for whom a death of a certain patient would be seen as desirable (family of a patient, a state hostile to a patient based on political or ideological grounds etc). [P3] Such groups or people could use a legal euthanasia as a cover to cause a patient's death.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] Possible abuse of legal euthanasia does not imply that the practice is ethically unjustified.

References

This page was last edited on Monday, 3 Feb 2020 at 13:49 UTC

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