Euthanasia is one of those things where those who are in favor of it think that it’s so self-evidently a thing to be in favor of and all right-minded people obviously think it’s great.
You breathe air, drink water, and send people to the great farm in the sky. Easy as ABC. No arguments needed. It’s just such a fundamental human right. Eat a sandwich, play some bowling, end some lives.
I’ll concede that it does follow from some of the axioms of the utilitarian worldview where non-existance is a great and relaxing state of mind and where suffering and happiness are easily quantifiable and predictable things. In the land where you can pull the lever on the trolley and the train just safely kills one person and that person would never ever had saved anyone else and the people on the other track will all go on to cure polio and all decisions are obvious and easy.
In some European countries, euthanasia is legal for BPD patients also. Even though some patients do get better. I’ve seen a couple of those cases, young girls who went for the euthanasia option. One was in a documentary, another was in a text interview. One thing that those three cases had in common was that they believed in some sorta afterlife. They were like “I don’t know where I’m going but I’m so excited for the journey”, another was “I long for it because I’ll be reunited with grandma”.
Now, I know I get bugged when other people can’t dig metaphor, when people refuse to believe the emperor is dressed, and I’ll grant the same charitable reading back and think that maybe they’re only being metaphorical here and that they really mean some other conception of death but are only using this particular afterlife-sounding language around it euphemistically. I can’t know that (and I can’t ask them because they’re dead now).
But it got me thinking that, say just for the sake of argument, that one of these patients do think they’re literally gonna go to a super cozy heaven as soon as their date in this system comes up. I asked myself: does this make the euthanasia road these girls are on better or worse? Is it more OK or less OK to kill them knowing that one thing that strongly influenced their decision was their belief that they were bound for an awesome destination? I didn’t find an answer because I ain’t the sharpest tool in the proverbial. It’s just something I sometimes think about.
I’m not the strongest-willed person either so often when I think about euthanasia or talk about it, some euthanasia proponent can bring up a case where they’re like “How about this one case!? Can’t you admit that this one case is one case where euthanasia would’ve been awesome” and I can’t really refute it. Less because of me somehow getting convinced (I can be thick-headed sometimes) and more because I can see that you think that it would’ve been awesome and I can’t argue in a way that’ll take that opinion or assessment away from you.
But conversely, going to the opposite extreme there are many people with awesome lives that have in their past at one time or another said “I want to die”. Some of those people I love or have loved. I’m glad they lived.
And I’m not the most consistent thinker and maybe with this you can twist my words. This is a big topic and maybe I’ll end up thinking what you’re thinking, once I’ve thought some more about it. I just don’t think it’s very obvious or self-evident and a lot of the assumptions that so clearly follow from your axioms, well, I ain’t as convinced of those axioms.