Claims on Euthanasia

            In the post Why Brittany Maynard Should Inspire Us to Oppose Euthanasia in All Cases for The Blaze, conservative blogger Matt Walsh argues against the legalization of physician assisted suicide.  To create an effective argument, Walsh utilizes all five types of claims, with proposal arguments being the most prevalent.  Walsh uses definitional claims to establish that physician assisted suicide is a death by prescribed medication, and it is the medication that ends the patient’s life, not the disease that allowed them to be prescribed the medication.  Walsh also uses definitional arguments to define what he believes a right is as well as a choice and the difference between the two.  He compares the names given to physician assisted suicide, aid in dying and dying with dignity, to other forms of death, murder and suicide, using a resemblance argument.  A causal argument is used to predict the potential consequences of legalizing Death with Dignity, such as changes in the law to allow competent children to opt for euthanasia subsequently leading to parents being allowed to opt for euthanasia without the child’s consent for both competent and incompetent children.  Walsh uses and ethical argument to describe the Hippocratic oath that physicians take and the ways he believes that physician assisted suicide violates that oath.  Throughout the entirety of the blog, Walsh uses a proposal argument to state that euthanasia should be completely opposed and prohibited world-wide.  Matt Walsh is able to create an effective argument by not only utilizing ethos, pathos, and logos, but by utilizing many types of claims as the building blocks for his case against physician assisted suicide.