Assisted suicide

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TheHolyTrinity said:
4 EAS risks coercing our elders. As our aging population continues to grows, feeling of being a burden to families may consequently will find themselves having to justify the right to live.
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This is the exact argument I use.

There’s always a chance it might not be the person’s own decision, even if the person thinks it is. There’s always the chance of coercion, from someone who thinks the person is too much of a burden to take care of or who just wants to inherit something.

You don’t have to be a Catholic to accept that argument.
 
signit said:
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TheHolyTrinity:
4 EAS risks coercing our elders. As our aging population continues to grows, feeling of being a burden to families may consequently will find themselves having to justify the right to live.
Click to expand...
This is the exact argument I use.

There’s always a chance it might not be the person’s own decision, even if the person thinks it is. There’s always the chance of coercion, from someone who thinks the person is too much of a burden to take care of or who just wants to inherit something.

You don’t have to be a Catholic to accept that argument.
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I think that’s a totally valid concern; enure that their agency is untainted.

But I don’t think that precludes denying them that final service. They should still be free to choose assisted suicide if they wish. When in doubt, don’t encumber someone’s agency.
 
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So-called “assisted suicide” … if you look at it closely … comes down to actively killing someone.
 
FiveLinden said:
There was a lot of damage done to Catholic influence on this matter when many Catholics tried to prevent life support being withdrawn from Terri Shiva, who was plainly in need of being allowed to die a natural death.
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Feeding an invalid isn’t “life support”.
 
Thanks for that, my friend. My countries Bishops message was read out at Mass last week. The Australian Conference of Bishops statement has some very thought provoking information.
 
The slippery slope fallacy is not always a fallacy:

www.nationalreview.com

29 and Euthanized: Dark News from the Netherlands | National Review

In the Netherlands, a 29-year-old woman is euthanized — because she’s mentally ill. Beware slippery slopes.
www.nationalreview.com www.nationalreview.com

Then this:

www.theglobeandmail.com

Canada’s Catholic hospitals in a tough spot on assisted death

Crucial question for the courts is whether institutions have the same freedom-of-conscience rights as individuals do
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/new...o-allow-euthanasia-for-mentally-ill-patients/
 
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I’m not sure I agree fully with the Catholic position on assisted suicide but I mostly agree with it (@Dacinom and others opened my eyes, so thank you!) .

But let me play devil’s advocate. Let’s imagine someone answers your post with these words:
“Then in that case, we should be pacifists, because once we accept that some wars are just, we establish a terrible precedent by which the line is pushed until society finds itself justifying terrible wars that are anything but just. We should outlaw alcohol, because that means that eventually we’ll end up legalizing marijuana and harder drugs. We should outlaw sex for any other reason than procreation because if we accept that spouses can have sex for pleasure and bonding, it’s a slippery slope and we will end up accepting extramarital, premarital and homosexual sex”

What would you say to such a person?
 
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The Church has established guidelines for what makes a war just etc.
 
Again, devil’s advocate: couldn’t guidelines be established for this?
 
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There are, that human life is important and is not to be taken by any other human except with possible exceptions as self defense and justice (ie death penalty).
 
No, consider it a quick attempt at playing devil’s advocate 😂

The point I was making is that someone may have argued that there are many other cases where we accept certain actions despite the danger of a slippery slope
 
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As you can see from the responses, the “isn’t that just the same as …” rarely ever is.

If you were still playing devil’s advocate, would it be that the primary argument for permitting assisted suicide to be one of free-will, and choice?

I also find that both sides use the term “dignity”, which then would come down to how “dignity” should be defined.
 
Yeah I suppose people could argue that, but you’d have to argue whether someone who wants to commit suicide is in good enough mental health to be allowed free will in carrying it out
 
Well, euthanasia has as its moral object the death of an innocent person, for the good intention of ending their suffering. Just acts of war don’t involve the direct killing of innocents as does euthanasia. An act of war that did directly take the life of an innocent would be no less wrong than euthanasia.
 
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