Irreplaceability In Human Life

It is becoming more difficult to know what to do in life and death situations. Advancements in medicine, challenges in the court, and changing opinions have raised questions about when life begins, what its value is, and when it ends. In the United States each life is very important and is taken very seriously. That is what distinguishes it from most of the other countries where we can see that there are constant wars going on and innocent people dying every day. If we start terminating people because they are not convenient or it’s expensive demeans that value. Human life is much more than just a cluster of biological cells. (Messerli, 2012) Rosenstand (2013), explains a modern equivalent of Kant’s idea where philosophers suggest the concept of irreplaceability. According to the ethics of irreplaceability, each person, no matter how old or how isolated and lonely, is unique and should be respected as a person, never to be sold out to the happiness of the majority. The discipline of bioethics is continually struggling to create policy suggestions for all the areas in which human needs may collide, such as the abortion issue, genetic profiling, euthanasia, and organ transplants; but the

In 2001 the Dutch legalized euthanasia. In the beginning euthanasia was only permitted for people who were suffering unbearable pain and who were able to make the decision rationally. But things started to get out of hand when a group called Life-Ending Clinic opened. They were providing the service for people who had not been approved for euthanasia from their doctors. They accepted people with chronic depression and early stages of dementia. This issue has become alarming and is an example of the slippery-slope argument that religious groups and people opposed to euthanasia debate. (“The Dutch Debate Doctor-Assisted Suicide for Depression,”