ABSTRACT
One of the most common arguments of opponents of the legalization of euthanasia has always been that permitting the ending of a patient's life at his explicit request will necessarily lead to permitting it without request. For the only reason that can justify euthanasia is that it ends a patient's unbearable suffering by ending her life. But if two patients are in exactly the same physical condition, and if euthanasia is in the best interests of the first, competent, patient, it must be in the interests of the second, incompetent, patient as well. Drawing on my analysis of suffering in the sixth chapter I reject that argument.
The argument has seemed too many to receive empirical confirmation because of the number of cases of termination of life without request in the Netherlands. It turns out, however, that in almost all cases of the ending of life without request morphine has been used, usually in dosages that do not exceed what is necessary for the alleviation of symptoms. In that case it is improbable that the patient has actually died as a result of the administration of those drugs. Moreover, such actions count as medically appropriate ones anyway, not as killings.
