1. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
J. Gay-Williams, “The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia”
Defines “euthanasia” as the “intentional taking of a life of a presumably worthless person”
The argument from nature
We have a “natural goal” of survival.
So euthanasia sets us against “our own nature.”
Moreover, since “our dignity comes from seeking our ends,” euthanasia “does violence to our dignity.”
This shows that euthanasia “requires that we regard ourselves as less than fully human,” as creatures that are not conscious of “our nature and our ends.”

2. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
J. Gay-Williams, “The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia”
The argument from self-interest
“Death is final and the chance of error too great to approve the practice of euthanasia.”
“There is always the possibility that an experimental procedure or a hitherto untried technique” will save the seemingly hopeless person.
“Knowing that we can take our life at any time (or ask another to take it) might well incline us to give up too easily.

3. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
J. Gay-Williams, “The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia”
The argument from practical effects
Allowing euthanasia “could have a corrupting influence so that in any case that is severe doctors and nurses might not try hard enough to save the patient.”
And “euthanasia as a policy is a slippery slope” because it might give authorities an inappropriate sort of control over deciding who ought to be euthanized.

4. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
James Rachels, “Active and Passive Euthanasia”
1973 American Medical Association policy:
“The intentional killing of the life of one human being by another—mercy killing—is contrary to that which the medical profession stands and is contrary to the policy of the [AMA],” but “the cessation of the employment of extraordinary means to prolong the life of the body when there is irrefutable evidence that biological death is imminent is the decision of the patient and/or his immediate family.”

5. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
James Rachels, “Active and Passive Euthanasia”
1973 American Medical Association policy:
Rachels takes this policy to prohibit all mercy killing but permitting some cases of allowing a patient to die.
He argues, however, that there is no inherent moral difference between killing and letting die (see his discussion of the Smith/Jones thought experiment).
On Rachels' view, discontinuing treatment with the intention of letting the patient die is an example of “the intentional killing of...one human being by another.”
He concludes that the AMA policy is based on the false assumption that there is an inherent moral difference.

6. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
Bonnie Steinbock, “The Intentional Termination of Life”
Steinbock, against Rachels, argues that the 1973 AMA policy is not based on the assumption that there is an inherent moral difference between killing and letting die.
Two situations where Steinbock says “the termination of life-prolonging treatment cannot be identified with the intentional termination of the life of one human being by another”:
Situations where the patient refuses treatment
Situations where “continued treatment has little chance of improving the patient's condition and brings greater discomfort than relief”

7. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
Dan W. Brock, “Voluntary Active Euthanasia”
Voluntary active euthanasia: “the case in which a clearly competent patient makes a fully voluntary and persistent request for aid in denying”
The value of autonomy/self-determination: “people's interest in making important decisions about their lives...according to their own values or conceptions of a good life”
The value of individual well-being: what is good for an individual person
Both values, according to Brock, make voluntary active euthanasia permissible.

8. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
Dan W. Brock, “Voluntary Active Euthanasia”
The “moral center” objection: The “moral center” of medicine will collapse “if physicians become killers or are even licensed to kill...each physician...will never again be worthy of trust and respect as healer and comforter and protector of life in all its frailty”
Brock's response: “Patient's trust of their physicians could be increased, not eroded, by knowledge that physicians will provide aid in dying when patients seek it.”

9. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
Bonnie Steinbock, “The Intentional Termination of Life”
Steinbock concludes that there are distinctions that explain the AMA policy's position, including:
Intending vs. foreseeing consequences
Intended consequences are desired by the physician; foreseen consequences are merely predicted
Ordinary vs. extraordinary treatment
Ordinary treatment: “the care a doctor would normally be expected to provide”
Extraordinary treatment: treatment “that will cause more discomfort than the [illness] and has little hope of benefiting the patient”

10. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
Richard Doerflinger, “Assisted Suicide: Pro- Choice or Anti-Life?”
The “pro-choice” position: focus is on “respect for personal autonomy” rather than “the inherent worth of human life”
Doerflinger argues that the pro-choice position is self-contradictory, because it allows for “a free act that by destroying human life, destroys all the individual's future earthly freedom.”

11. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
Richard Doerflinger, “Assisted Suicide: Pro- Choice or Anti-Life?”
He also provides a series of slippery slope arguments, which appeal to:
possible changes in legal doctrines and definitions of “terminal illness”
possible prejudice against citizens with disabilities
alterations in the character of the medical profession
the negative influence of the human “will to power”

12. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
David T. Watts and Timothy Howell, “Assisted Suicide is Not Voluntary Active Euthanasia”
Voluntary active euthanasia: the “administration of medications or other interventions intended to cause death at a patient's request”
Assisted suicide: the “provision of information, means, or direct assistance by which a patient may take his or her own life.” Three kinds:
Providing information
Providing the means of suicide
Supervising or directly aiding

13. Chapter 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
David T. Watts and Timothy Howell, “Assisted Suicide is Not Voluntary Active Euthanasia”
Watts and Howell deny three claims:
That assisted suicide will lead to abuse of vulnerable persons
That it will undermine trust between patients and physicians
That it will weaken societal resolve to increase resources allocated to care of the dying
They defend “limited” physician-assisted suicide, which allows for providing information and providing the means of suicide, but prohibits supervising or directly aiding the act.