Would voluntary euthanasia benefit society?
If you were required to be an organ donor, you'd save lives while setting yourself free. You'll also give someone else a chance at taking the spot you had at work and your apartment.
Voluntary assisted dying (VAD), is legal in all Australian states except the Northern Territory. It was first legalised in 2017 after over 60 failed bills.
The person must have a disease or illness that is advanced, progressive, and expected to cause death within a certain time frame, must be experiencing intolerable suffering and must meet the eligibility criteria for their state.
My state has a ‘gag law’ that prohibits medical staff initiating a conversation about voluntary assisted dying with a patient.
It's not a situation that anybody ever wants to be in, but knowing that should the worst happen, relief is possible can be a big comfort.
Depends why. In Canada we have MAID which allows it under specific medical circumstances. It's controversial, but quickly becoming more popular.
I think something like 5% of our deaths last year were MAID
Voluntary euthanasia would benefit the person. People shouldn't be forced to live just because society says so and people have been indoctrinated to believe that they should have a say in somebody else's life.
People commit suicide in the most horrific ways and euthanasia can be a beautiful way to leave the flesh cage of pain. Imagine instead of jumping off a building, you get to sit and watch a sunset over a beautiful landscape. Imagine instead of suffering through cancer or some incurable disease until you get to "palliative care", you can leave this earthly plane on your own time, without pain and with your loves ones around you.
Of course a rigorous but quick procedure should exist to ensure that the decision is your own without outside pressures. It should be relatively quick so that in cases where your mental capacities start deteriorating, that you aren't reject because they took too long to make a decision and you are now mentally incapable of answering questions.
Benefit to society? Fuck that. Your body, your choice.
A distant family member took care to avoid his family discovering his remains. But someone does the discovering and if your end is violent and messy, now you’re inflicting that violence on someone else.
Having a way out means a peaceful end, a clear choice, minimal violence and mess, the whoever “discovers you” is prepared for it. Sparing a passer by or first responder, along with your loved ones, from the trauma is a value to society, so there’s that
I guess this question has to be looked at from multiple dimensions.
From a purely economical and short-term perspective, maybe yes. Every human not contributing to society at an at least average level, is consuming ressources and driving up the costs. No matter if it's due to illness, disability, depression, age, weakness, missing intelligence etc.
From a social perspective, such a program quickly can turn into a nightmare: First of all, everyone would be under pressure. If you're not a constant top performer, you'd feel like a burden on society. And the bar to be a top performer would constantly rise as more and more people on the 'lower end' decide to end their lives.
Second, it's impossible to quantify the value of a person holistically. People can provide no direct economic value and still be an important member of society. Like emotionally supporting others, being loved, providing jobs etc.
Furthermore - in a society where at some point the 'weak' are expected to 'voluntarily' end their lives, people would be constantly scared. No one would be willing to take any risks because getting injured, getting a depression etc. would be like an implicit death penalty. This would again lead to devastating effects on economy.
I personally think that everyone should be allowed to end their lives if they really deeply want it. But this should never be expected, actively promoted or pushed for. And I think it should involve at least a consultation with a medical professional to avoid hasty decisions due to a temporary crisis.
I personally think that everyone should be allowed to end their lives if they really deeply want it. But this should never be expected, actively promoted or pushed for. And I think it should involve at least a consultation with a medical professional to avoid hasty decisions due to a temporary crisis.
I mean, yes, but I really don't think anyone is arguing for the opposite when talking about legal euthanasia and I find it disingenuous to even suggest it. Let's not forget that almost anyone can commit suicide regardless of it being legal or medically assisted and this has been the case and will be the case for the entirety of human history. Look at Japan and similar countries/societies where the cultural and societal pressures already have the consequences you described without it being legal.
Arguing for legal euthanasia is really just saying that people should have a safer, more informed and more dignified option if they really intend to make that decision, and guaranteeing that even the people who currently can't end their lives on their own can still exercise that right if they want to. If you want to prevent pointless suicides the right way to do it isn't to take away the possibility entirely, it's making sure that society doesn't give people reasons to want to kill themselves.
EDIT: I've just realized that I initially misread OP's question which specifically asks about "voluntary" euthanasia. The comment I'm replying to is more relevant to the original discussion than my response. Still can't shake off the feeling that speaking about something like this even purely hypothetically can only do more harm than good in current times, as it's very easy to imagine that once the concept of "voluntary euthanasia" begins floating around, people who want to argue in bad faith against legal euthanasia will just conflate the two to make the rational side look like a death cult.
it's making sure that society doesn't give people reasons to want to kill themselves.
It's so SIMPLE, yet so hard for so many to grasp.
These arguments are kind of dripping in slippery slope fallacy. That's a potential outcome but by no means the only one. I'd hazard that's a pretty worst case interpretation. I think your average person doesn't evaluate themselves solely through the lens of economic value. Capitalismwould nudge people toward your slope, but I don't think humans would totally cooperate with the effort.
Since you mentioned it - organ donation should be opt out, not opt in. It wouldn't even be controversial, everybody still has freedom of choice.
Edit: I'm really curious what those downvoting me are objecting to. At least leave a comment or something!
We have it half way in between in NL: If you don't opt out of organ donation, they will register: "Did not object to donation". Without a definite yes, close family could still opt you out (after you lose the ability to share your thoughts) if they feel strongly against donating. With a definite yes, that option is also no longer available.
I think the full "opt-out" way should be fine too, if you really feel strongly against sharing working organs, you have the option to not do it, so no one is forced to do anything, and with opt-out the amount of organs available will be much larger, saving lives.
No. You'd create perverse incentives where people would be shunned by society for refusing to kill themselves.
Instead, we eliminate work-as-a-necessity by meeting everyone's "needs" and transform society to work-as-a-luxury: Employment isn't for meeting our essential survival needs, but for our social wants.
As for the "apartment": We have sufficient quantity of vacant housing that every homeless person in the country could be housed today, and even if there weren't, it would be easy to build. What's lacking is the motivation to do it.
No. You'd create perverse incentives where people would be shunned by society for refusing to kill themselves.
If the majority of society wants you gone, your death would benefit them. Unfortunately not everyone is capable of being loved.
But I agree with the rest.
Do you understand the difference between "Democracy" and "Populism"?
Democracy is the idea that political authority is conveyed through the consent of the people.
Populism is the idea that political authority is conveyed by the will of the majority.
When 90 people want to kill off 10, Democracy says that those 10 people are part of the source of political power. Their deaths are out of bounds for the rest of the populace to even consider.
Populism says that the 90 are free to call for the destruction of the 10.
Societal endorsement of voluntary euthanasia promotes a perverse, populistic viewpoint, as opposed to our democratic ideology.
Populism is two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner. Democracy is whatever keeps the sheep off that particular ballot.
I have no problem with medically-assisted suicide to prevent pain and suffering in cases of terminal illness. I have no moral or ethical problems with suicide in general (although society's position should be to intervene and prevent suicide where we reasonably can.) My issue is in giving society the authority to ask its members to kill themselves.
I mean I don't like the part about requiring to be an organ donor but I believe in absolute bodily autonomy and feel everyone (assuming of age and of sound mind) should have the right to die if they so choose. The issue of sound mind is what makes alzheimers such a horrible disease.
depends on the reason for it.
Generally, I'm of the "its your life, do what you want," camp. There's some valid reasons for voluntary euthanasia- like terminal diseases that are painful. We do it for pets that we love, we say 'we don't want to prolong the suffering'...
why is it wrong to let humans make that decision for themselves?
i would ideally like to die at an old age painlessly in my sleep. I do not want to feel a critical organ failing while the rest of my body struggles to keep me alive through that.
I feel that the only way to guarantee that i get to die painlessly is to have that scenario engineered rather than letting it play out "naturally".
death is scary, ideally i would like to not have to suffer while going through the most terrifying and final moment of my life.
I would say that people being able to have access to gentle, quiet means of exercising their right to death is a positive, period.
But you start making organ donation mandatory, you run into some heavy issues.
No. Volunteer euthanasia potentially benefits the individual
It costs a lot of money to keep a terminally ill person alive.
I believe we should keep terminally ill people alive for as long as possible if that’s what they want. We shouldn’t deny anyone healthcare. But there are those who prefer to end their agony quick, and I think we should respect their wish.
I think it’s strange that we spend so much money on healthcare on people who rather don’t want to. Better to use that money on people who want to continue living.
Some countries have voluntary euthanasia. Usually, you need to fill paperwork in advance, and have an incurable disease which causes pains and suffering.
I haven't looked statistic on how well it works, whether it is abused (Not paying a nursing home to mom, cutting down social expense because disabled can just get euthanasia). but it's definitely a comfortable option to know that you won't have to wait for your cancer to kill you an immense amount of pain or to stay in coma for decade after an accident.
If someone is an able bodied person who is able to work, voluntary euthanasia would not benefit most societies. There would be to be rampant unemployment to make it near a benefit to society, which is usually more of a sign than the society is such instead of the individual.
Most economic research into the topic have been on those with severe disabilities, deteriorating medical conditions, and when end of life should occur. At that point, there isn't an economic value keeping someone alive while there is a high economic cost in doing so.
If you're able to work, it isn't a benefit for society if you kill yourself.
No. The horrible people would never choose it. They'd revel in making the good people so miserable they'd kill themselves. Society would crumble because only the selfish assholes would be left.
I mean......how is that different than what we have today?
"Ugh, too much trouble to kill myself, if I have to live in this fucking world I might as well try to make it a little better." That's my thought for today.
no? you can kill yourself anytime you want. why would we wanna make some asshole rich for killing people who couldve done it for free?
First and foremost, euthanasia does not benefit these people who get killed.