Title: BBC - Ethics - Euthanasia: Pro-euthanasia arguments
Headings: Pro-euthanasia arguments
Pro-euthanasia arguments
Overview of pro-euthanasia arguments
Arguments based on rights
Practical arguments
Philosophical arguments
Arguments about death itself
Regulating euthanasia
People have the right to die
Human beings have the right to die when and how they want to
Religious objections
Secular objections
Other human rights imply a right to die
The right to life includes the right to die
The right not to be killed
The rights to privacy and freedom of belief include a right to die
The European Convention on Human Rights gives a person the right to die
English law already acknowledges that people have the right to die
Libertarian argument
Objections to this argument
Medical resources
Euthanasia may be necessary for the fair distribution of health resources
Objections to this argument
Moral rules must be universalisable
This alone does not justify euthanasia
How similar can situations be?
Universal exceptions to universal rules
Euthanasia happens anyway
Euthanasia happens - better to make it legal and regulate it properly
A utilitarian argument for euthanasia
Is death a bad thing?
Why ask this question?
Why is death a bad thing?
People don't usually want to die
Violation of autonomy
Being dead, versus not having been born

Content: And behind that lies the idea that human beings are independent biological entities, with the right to take and carry out decisions about themselves, providing the greater good of society doesn't prohibit this. Allied to this is a firm belief that death is the end. Religious objections
Religious opponents disagree because they believe that the right to decide when a person dies belongs to God. Secular objections
Secular opponents argue that whatever rights we have are limited by our obligations. The decision to die by euthanasia will affect other people - our family and friends, and healthcare professionals - and we must balance the consequences for them (guilt, grief, anger) against our rights. We should also take account of our obligations to society, and balance our individual right to die against any bad consequences that it might have for the community in general. These bad consequences might be practical - such as making involuntary euthanasia easier and so putting vulnerable people at risk. There is also a political and philosophical objection that says that our individual right to autonomy against the state must be balanced against the need to make the sanctity of life an important, intrinsic, abstract value of the state. Secular philosophers put forward a number of technical arguments, mostly based on the duty to preserve life because it has value in itself, or the importance of regarding all human beings as ends rather than means. Top
Other human rights imply a right to die
Without creating (or acknowledging) a specific right to die, it is possible to argue that other human rights ought to be taken to include this right.