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National & World Issue

Do terminally ill patients have the right to voluntary #euthanasia?

Score for this "Yes" opinion :
Score is TBD

"Saying yes to #euthanasia: dying with dignity" Aug 11, 2024

#Euthanasia is a broad topic with a lot of factors to consider. However, no matter what the reason is, a person should have the right to end further suffering.

Allowing euthanasia indicates freedom of democracy. Van Niekerk discussed the relationship between freedom and allowing someone to end his or her life in his editorial in The Conversation. He argued, “The most convincing case in favor of voluntary active euthanasia or medically-assisted suicide is the argument in favor of democratic suicide. In my knowledge, the freedom to commit suicide is one of the costs that we must be able to accept as people of democracy.”

Van Niekerk also added that people have no perceptible right or role to exist. Yet we have the freedom to determine how long we're already in life. We all have the freedom to commit suicide, but it does not imply that it’s morally acceptable to perform that right.

“My case in support of voluntary euthanasia is also focused on the right to suicide, which I believe implies democracy and compassion,” he further added.

Dying with dignity and freedom is stipulated in the country’s constitution. However, this topic is still a crucial subject for debates in state courts. ProCon.org updated their debate section concerning euthanasia and its acceptance to the American society. In this section, there is a posted argument in favor of euthanasia concerning compassion raised in the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on the 6th of March, the year 1996. The Court concluded, "While some citizens point to the freedom interest involved in right-to-die situations as a freedom interest in resorting to suicide, this is not the definition of this case. We use wider and more definitive words, 'the freedom to die,' 'the timing and nature of one's demise,' and 'the hastening of one's death,' with an essential purpose.”

The freedom interest that the Court investigated includes a whole spectrum of actions that are usually not deemed to constitute suicide. Contained in the freedom interest that the court investigates is, for example, the denial or cessation of unnecessary medical care.

As a result, Cruzan and Casey provided sufficient evidence to the court that the U.S. #constitution entails a due process of freedom with the intention of taking time or method of one's death. So, this case was concluded as a constitutionally recognized euthanasia.

Ending someone’s life should become a norm and, therefore, non-negotiable as long as it is done with dignity and out of compassion.

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