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Euthanasia is a solved problem and the only explanation for its advocates call for it is that they have insufficient care for the lives they're ending. There is no circumstance, NONE, where it is necessary to actively end a nonthreatening person's life. Not when you can just give them the fun drugs in quantities sufficient to render their suffering moot. This kid should have been on fentanyl, not murdered. (If the drug kills the patient as a side effect that's unfortunate, though predictable. At least they had the best available time beforehand.)
I'm not a hedonic utilitarian: I'd rather die.
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What about people who are functionally dead (like brain death) or people who were functionally never born (as is arguable in this case)?
Well the fentanyl isn't going to make things any worse for them, then. It's a little more expensive for the parents or society that keeps them alive, but not THAT much more expensive. Drugs is cheap yo. Especially as they wouldn't be alive for that much longer in proportion to how much fun they're having.
Pleasure causing drugs don't fix all problems, and for people who functionally don't have brains they aren't really doing much.
It's not about fixing problems, it's about giving the sufferer the a quality of life better than being dead. And I feel like that shouldn't be a super high bar because people regularly persevere through absolutely horrible circumstances instead of choosing death
If the person is truly braindead, then the drugs aren't any WORSE than euthanasia. The point is to avoid deliberately killing someone who would have otherwise preferred life-- even in the meanest sense.
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The drugs are not perfect and do not make a negative value life have positive value. Would you like to be a fentanyl addict, for example? A miserable existence.
I think fentanyl addicts prefer their drugged state to their undrugged state, and prefer it also to being killed. If either of those things fail to hold, then their problem is insufficiently fun drugs. Now, it's hard to say whether the epileptic braindead child would prefer drugs to death, but I feel confident enough guessing that insofar as they have preferences, they would enjoy fentanyl as a little treat. The problem with fentanyl globally is that it prevents people from living full, healthy lives in other ways... But I don't think that's a concern in this incident.
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