Excellent post yet again by existentialgoof with the right to die.

[TAW122]

Just recently, I have found a very good post that pretty much highlights some of the points and threads (see examples #1, #2, and #3) I've written in the past (as far back as 2019, 2020, and even in the recent year or so). While he has expressed his point much more eloquently than I, the core sentiment is pretty much similar to mine (just worded and phrased differently).

Anyways, so the core sentiment that he is raised a point that pro-lifers have no justification to impose their will onto others just as much as we don't have the justification to impose our will onto others (pro-lifers in this case). In his words, he said that if pro-lifers could inflict harm (by preventing CTB) onto people who don't wish to live, then if the roles were reversed, then they (the pro-lifers) wouldn't be ok with it, which I agree. (See quoted post below)
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"We can both agree that suffering is bad. However, what is unclear is why the badness of suffering alone should entail that a person should be allowed to end their life.
If you're the one proposing to stop them, then you're the one who needs a justification for it. Otherwise, your argument is that you can cause me harm without provocation because it validates your moral beliefs. but if you're allowed to cause me harm without provocation, then why would the reverse not also apply? What is it that privileges your moral beliefs in that you're allowed to cause someone unnecessary and preventable harm without provocation, that doesn't also apply to someone else's moral beliefs that may entail harming you without provocation?

Furthermore, if human beings do not possess an inherent moral value, then I am not sure from where you are deriving a right to die. Under such a scheme in which life has only instrumental value to the person, the reason for living or not living is subjective because it js restricted to the domain of the individual. As such, there are no objective reasons for why a right to die exists, let alone why people should comply with that right. The faith-based aspect of your position is your attempt to derive a right to die from an individual's personal preference for whether to live or die.

There's no 'objective' moral reason for anything. However, all of us have an interest in not being brought to unnecessary harm. And if you're allowed to cause me harm (by preventing me from avoiding harm), then why can I not cause you harm? We would not be able to build a civilisation on the basis of individuals being allowed to decide that they have the right to harm others, based on their moral beliefs. What therefore works best is that each person is allowed to abide by their own moral code, as long as, in doing so, they are not violating anyone else's rights, and they are not reneging on any obligations. I do not believe that merely having been born is sufficient to impose on me a lifelong obligation wherein my welfare and my personal judgement count for nothing. There is no faith-based aspect to this. It's simply - if you're allowed to claim a right to torture me for no reason other than to validate your moral beliefs; then why should I not have that same right? What gives you the privilege of being able to torture people in service of your moral beliefs?

First, society has a vested interested in sustaining its population. Without living people, society cannot exist.

And the antebellum south had a vested interest in keeping the black population enslaved. Is that then a moral argument in opposition to abolition of slavery?

Secondly, laws must align with what is good to have binding power. One of the properties of what makes a rule into a law (as opposed to a merely a suggestion) is its prescriptiveness, or ability to compel people on how they ought to act. In this way, if a law does not align with what is good, it is unclear why a person should obey that law. Just because something is legal does not explain why it ought to be followed. The only way to explain and uphold the prescriptive quality of the law is if it is grounded in what is morally good. We follow the law because it is grounded in an objective reality of what actually ought to be done. For this reason, if the law were to allow suicide, and suicide is morally wrong, there is no reason for why that law should be obeyed, and so no reason to comply with a person's wish to kill themselves.

This is just a reassertion of your belief that suicide is morally bad. You still haven't justified why it is morally bad, and why systematic and unprovoked acts of aggression aimed at preventing suicide (thus prolonging suffering) is less morally bad, let alone morally virtuous.

Thirdly, your claim that we should not impose our moral beliefs on others through the law is itself a moral belief that you are claiming should be enhrined in the law. For this reason, the notion that moral beliefs should not be enhrined in law is self-refuting. You are essentially claiming beliefs should not be imposed on others while simulatenously advocating for such, but under the false veil of non-interference or neutrality.

The only thing that I'm "imposing" on you is that you can't torture me without provocation. But given that you would probably want the same right not to be harmed without provocation; that cancels out. You're claiming the positive right to torture me, because you have a moral belief that torture is good. But then if I were to reverse the positions, would you find it acceptable that I can just make up moral grounds to torture you, and them I have a legal right to do it?

So in the end, it all comes down to the question of whether suicide is morally wrong. If so, then the law should not allow it. If not, then the law ahould permit people to do so. Appeals to separation of the moral from the legal, government interference, and individual autonomy distract us because they do not address the above-mentioned fundamental question causing people's disagreement on this issue.

I don't think that you can clearly say that anything which is immoral should therefore also be illegal. There are countless examples of behaviour which may be considered immoral, but which it would be even more problematic to criminalise. For example, should insulting people always be illegal? But it hasn't been established why simply being born ought to be considered a binding moral and legal contract, in which your own wellbeing is forfeit for the benefit of validating some sort of moral code."

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In short, I agree with his post and he presented his argument really eloquently and really took the fight to the pro-lifers. If pro-lifers can easily just impose harm on us, then (logically speaking) there is no reason why we couldn't just make up arbitrary moral grounds (on our own personal values) and impose those on them (the pro-lifers). I'm sure they (the pro-lifers) wouldn't appreciate it, just like we don't approve of being imposed life when we don't wish to live, which makes pro-lifers, by default, hypocrites.