4 ms·
This is the same fallacious reasoning people use to advocate many laws, drug prohibition a popular one. For instance people will say if drugs are legal then it
by chronofar 6y ago
This is the same fallacious reasoning people use to advocate many laws, drug prohibition a popular one. For instance people will say if drugs are legal then it opens the door to people being intoxicated while driving or harming someone else in x other way. But of course these are already illegal in of their own.
What you’re looking for here is protections of the elderly against abuse via coercion to act counter to their best wishes. This is a separate concern that needs to have laws and parameters around it.
Virtually anything can be “an opportunity for abuse.” Look at the internet. That’s not a good reason at all to prevent it, it’s a reason to outlaw and protect against the abuse.
- MichaelMoser123 6y agoi don't think that the drug thing applies here; protecting the live of its citiziens is the most basic function of a state; if there are loopholes here then these loopholes will be exploited. I am afraid it's not the same situation so that your argument doesn't apply.
- sokoloff 6y agoIs it protecting/maximizing the duration of life of its citizens or maximizing the freedom of its citizens? Both in isolation seem like laudable aims for the State, but lead us in opposing direction on this issue.
- MichaelMoser123 6y agoI am not arguing from a position of principle, my argument is one of computer security; if you got a zero day exploit then that's an invitation for taking advantage of it? Now if you can legally get rid of someone, then that's something similar to a zero day exploit with regards to the principle of having to protect the lives of the states subjects (who are paying taxes exactly for the purpose of upholding this principle).
- sokoloff 6y agoShould the state’s citizens (or subjects as you call them) be allowed to run a different OS than the one which the state determines is “the absolutely most secure and therefore state-sanctioned”? If they can’t, do they really own their computer?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chronofar 6y agoIt’s exactly the same situation by the criteria you just gave. Intoxicated driving is illegal because it puts the lives of others at risk. If you don’t find that particular analogy salient surely you can think of others. How about just driving itself in cars that can go faster than the speed limit? The point is there are a multitude of things that provide benefit and also the opportunity for abuse, but rarely, virtually never, does this justify forgoing the benefit.
- MichaelMoser123 6y agono, if I get drunk than that's my decission (with all due respect); If someone else wants to end my live, and is able to apply all sort of trickeries to argue that this is in conformance with the law, then that's a different thing.
- Retric 6y agoThat’s already the case with say pollution. People constantly argue about how many people they can kill while it’s still legal. Assisted suicide is hardly a special case. Yet, we don’t shut down every coal power plant because it’s useful just as we don’t ban cars etc. The benefits of assisted suicide are similarly significant and therefore worth it.
- andrepd 6y ago>If someone else wants to end my live You're saying this as if we're talking about involuntary euthanasia.
- chronofar 6y agoHow about from a different angle, without this law if someone wants to keep me alive at all costs against my will and force me to live in agony they an "apply all sorts of trickeries" to do so. For me, extreme prolonged agony is a fate worse than death. Death does not scare me, profound suffering does. Again, the law you're after here is preventing elder abuse. This is indeed something we should pay great attention to and try as best we can to carry out the wishes of the elderly. This abuse is no uncommon, even if it's comparatively benign by changing estate inheritance at the end of life for instance. It really has nothing to do with assisted suicide.