so, is it possible that providing for suicide on demand may create a society where you have a suicide industry that overpowers access to services? is it possible that governments might cut services to the disabled and increase funding for the suicide industry, instead?
sure.
with prostitution, you can sort of decriminalize it and look the other way, while rejecting the commercialization of it. and, with drugs, you can bring in bylaws that restrict smoking in certain spaces. so, you can do things to mitigate the effects. we're not doing that for smoking pot, yet, but it's the right answer, and we should get there, eventually.
assisted suicide is a little different, as you can't look the other way and the externalities don't need to be mitigated because they don't exist.
my best response to this - and it's a legit critique and something that needs to be carefully monitored and adjusted for - is that the right to death is one of many rights, and the court needs to uphold all of the rights, including all of the other rights, while maintaining the right to access death. so, if the argument is that the right to death will undo these other rights, i can accept that the concern is valid, and will argue that it's important that we stand up for these other rights - to shelter, to care.
the canadian jurisprudence is supposed to do that - it's in the precedents.
but, do i think it's an argument against suicide-on-demand? i don't - and i couldn't imagine somebody erecting a convincing argument that people don't have the right to access death, relative to whatever choice they choose to make. it is an argument to remain vigilant, and ensure that the struggle for access to these other rights continues, and i see little reason to think it won't.
at the end of the day, there are some people that will embrace their disabilities and want to live with them and there are some people that won't. the system can't really change who wants to live and who doesn't, it can only provide equally for both options.
providing for only one choice cannot become the status quo - and we'll have to make sure it doesn't.
the other thing to ask is if i think this is a realistic concern, and i think my response here is more mixed. it could be. but, it's not an economic inevitability, the way that corporate prostitution is, it relies on a confluence of government and industry aligning in a specific, unfortunate manner. the care industry could become more powerful and profitable than the suicide industry, if the conditions allow for it; there's not any inherent power imbalance, or any inevitable social conditions that lead to the dominance of the suicide industry, over time. and, courts can and no doubt will rule on the rights of the disabled to live as well, whereas they'll never rule on the rights of prostitutes to self-organize.
so, i guess you could say that i think we can handle euthanasia better than we can handle prostitution, at this time.
but, yeah - some careful thought is required.