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The perverse incentives of euthanasia - by Noah Smith

noahpinion.blog · 2,941 words · saved by 1 readers

I do think euthanasia is OK in principle. I believe that as long as they’re in their right mind, people have the right to die instead of continuing to live in horrible pain. The idea does not disgust me, or trigger a deep-seated moral taboo. If you disagree with that — if you think that all human life is sacred and should be preserved and protected at any cost, or even if you just feel like there’s something wrong with euthanasia that you can’t quite express — then fine. I respect that viewpoint. That’s not the debate I want to have today. What I do want to talk about today are some very important perverse incentives that any euthanasia policy needs to work strenuously to avoid. And watching the progress of Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) in Canada and the discussion about it in the UK, I’m doubtful that even the most responsible, morally beneficent policymakers and professionals can entirely avoid those incentives on their own. The basic problem is that promoting wider use of eutha

“The mayor’s out killing kids/ To keep taxes down” — The Weakerthans Today’s post is about a sensitive and difficult topic: euthanasia, also known as “assisted dying”. I do think euthanasia is OK in principle. I believe that as long as they’re in their right mind, people have the right to die instead of continuing to live in horrible pain. The idea does not disgust me, or trigger a deep-seated moral taboo. If you disagree with that — if you think that all human life is sacred and should be preserved and protected at any cost, or even if you just feel like there’s something wrong with…

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