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Notes -
I think you realize that this line of argument applies to you as well should you suffer a stroke that renders you a net drain on society for the rest of your life. You might fall back on “my family would be sad if I were left to die,” but there are millions of Christians saddened by the availability of abortion and especially infants born and left to die.
Utility-based moral systems tend to have these problems.
Yes, I have had this conversation with my family multiple times and made it very clear that I would like to be euthanized/taken off life support if such a thing were to happen to me. I do not believe that my physical body is so sacrosanct that it should be kept alive, at great expense, if and when my mental faculties are gone. My mother feels the same way, and as her power of attorney I may one day need to make that decision for her; I plan to honor her explicit desire.
This is part of why I advocate so strongly for eugenics: I would like to eliminate, to the greatest extent possible, congenital conditions which have a strong likelihood of rendering humans mentally inert or broken, such that they become (or just are, from the very beginning of life) a pure burden.
Still there are going to be grey areas where you have retained enough mental faculties to not be 'gone' but you are still nonetheless a burden in the utility scale.
Most of us would trust our immediate family to make the correct decision in these grey areas more than we trust the legislature. Given the general views of conservative Republicans on family values and the trustworthiness of the government, it is odd that the conservative movement thinks that this particular deeply personal decision needs to be taken once-and-for-all by politicians who don't have to live with the consequences, but the nature of American coalitional politics is what it is.
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