I recently went to a talk on physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and there was a pro argument for the subject given. I would like to explore the implications of this argument, in an attempt to show that this “fairly common” argument is undesirable. The argument went like this:

1. People have the right to dignity, including dignity in death.
2. Sometimes, to continue to live would infringe significantly on the dignity of an individual.
3. Thus, in those cases, it is permissible for a person to kill themselves.

I am going to attempt to run this argument to its logical and undesirable conclusion. A child born with a mental deficiency that would render them without the capacity to make major life decisions as well as deprive them of what could be reasonably called common dignities would meet the qualifications for the first and second premises of this argument. If such a child existed, their parent(s) would have the right to act on behalf of the child and it would, therefore, be “permissible” for them to kill that child.

I believe this counterexample denies the first premise, that people have the right to dignity in death. In the context of this argument, I am not saying that people never have the right to dignity in death, but that the infringement of their dignity in life does not qualify them to prematurely take their right to dignity in death.

I also recognize that this counterexample has potential objections. The main one that I see is that the parents of the child would hold the right to end the child’s life on their behalf. My reason for this assumption was that we commonly give parents the rights to make other major life decisions on behalf of children and that this would not be significantly different.

I would just like to hear some thoughts on the original argument, as well as my critique of it.