This column is written by the Otago University Debating Society, which meets for social debating every Tuesday at 6pm in the Commerce Building
Affirmative, by By Old Major
Most of us probably couldn’t imagine the unbearable pain and suffering people must endure in the end stages of terminal illnesses. It robs people of their ability to enjoy life, and the final stages of many degenerative illnesses render patients unable to do anything (such as spending quality time with their loved ones) due to the amount of pain they are in. Legalising voluntary euthanasia is necessary in order to give people in this situation control over the quality of the life they have remaining.
The most important principled issue in this debate is whether individuals have a right to voluntary euthanasia. There are several reasons to favour the right of the individual to choose. First, our society gives individuals freedom to make their own choices about how they live their lives as much as possible, so long as they do not harm others. Individuals know what they want better than the government. In this instance, a person who is enduring the pain of a terminal illness is best placed to decide how to maximise their own quality of life in the time they have left. Second, giving individuals control over the manner and timing of their death is important for their own sense of dignity. Suffering from a terminal illness takes away the control people have over their own bodies. For some, living out their final days in terrible pain robs them of their dignity and how they would like their friends and family to remember them. Having more control over their death will likely allow people to make the most of their remaining time as they will not be enduring a terrible, uncertain wait for the end.
Obviously there are many concerns about informed consent and the potential for individuals to make decisions under duress. Any law allowing voluntary euthanasia must have strict regulations in place to ensure that a person is of sound mind when they make the arrangements and have full information from medical professionals about the process. In countries allowing voluntary euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, there are many safeguards in place to maintain the balance between freedom of choice and protecting vulnerable people.
Negative, by Squealer the Pig
The reason that the affirmative case for voluntary euthanasia is limited to very specific circumstances is because there is no real ‘right’ to end one’s life. The basis for the right should be to respect individual choices regardless of the reasons for making those choices. If the provision of this choice is predicated on individual liberty, then it logically makes sense to expand the range of situations in which individuals are allowed to exercise this right. There are many situations where this could be dangerous. The elderly could be particularly vulnerable, and it’s difficult to compare the level of pain from regular illnesses that come from aging with the pain experienced by those suffering from terminal illnesses. What threshold do we say is the cut-off for allowing someone to end their life?
Moreover, society has a strong moral obligation to provide the highest standard of palliative care possible for those suffering from terminal conditions and/or severe pain. There are still significant improvements that need to be made, and legalising voluntary euthanasia undermines the political pressure to continue (and even increase) funding for healthcare and medical research. People who suffer from terminal illnesses may also feel there is moral pressure to choose to end their lives through euthanasia, as there is the danger it becomes normalised and/or even expected for people in these situations. It’s a particular danger because those with terminal illnesses often seek out support from others who suffer from the same condition, and the experiences of others may unduly influence the choices they make about approaching the end of their lives.
Last, the question of regulation is not as simple as presented in the affirmative case. How do you obtain full and informed consent in a situation that is very difficult for most of us to even think about confronting? A terminal diagnosis forces you to confront your own mortality in a very real way, and your thinking is likely to change over time as you go through the stages of illness. Competency requirements are necessary to ensure full and informed consent, but people can change their mind and may not be able to communicate that in the later stages of their illness.