more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Involuntary euthanasia can normally be ruled out, because it falls foul of the autonomy objection, and it is likely to have appalling side-effects.
Gist of Idea
Involuntary euthanasia is wrong because it violates autonomy, and it has appalling side-effects
Source
Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §15.1)
Book Ref
Glover,Jonathan: 'Causing Death and Saving Lives' [Penguin 1982], p.191
A Reaction
The only defence of it is if the prospects are utterly horrible and the subject cannot grasp them. However, is this true of children or the very old. Paternalism may be appropriate, if the decider has reliably depressing knowledge?
| 7253 | In Utopia, legal euthanasia is considered honourable [More,T] |
| 4050 | We only allow voluntary euthanasia to someone who is both sane and crazed by pain [Kamisar] |
| 4051 | People will volunteer for euthanasia because they think other people want them dead [Kamisar] |
| 4681 | The Nazi mass murders seem to have originated in their euthanasia programme [Glover] |
| 4683 | Involuntary euthanasia is wrong because it violates autonomy, and it has appalling side-effects [Glover] |
| 4682 | Euthanasia is voluntary (patient's wish), or involuntary (ignore wish), or non-voluntary (no wish possible) [Glover] |
| 4684 | Maybe extreme treatment is not saving life, but prolonging the act of dying [Glover] |
| 4053 | If it is desirable that a given patient die, then moral objections to killing them do not apply [Rachels] |
| 4052 | It has become normal to consider passive euthanasia while condemning active euthanasia [Rachels] |
| 20882 | Euthanasia may not involve killing, so it is 'killing or not saving, out of concern for that person' [Hooker,B] |
| 20885 | Euthanasia is active or passive, and voluntary, non-voluntary or involuntary [Hooker,B] |