1NC

1

Resolved means firm in purposeRandom House Dictionary 9 Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Dictionary, "resolved," http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Resolved, re⋅solved [ri-zolvd]

–adjective

firm in purpose or intent ; determined .

Should implies mandatory actionWords and Phrases 53 Vol. 39, p. 312.

Command implied. The word “should,” as used in Laws 1901, p. 387, c 106, 3, providing that, on proof of certain facts to the county court, it

shall be determined whether territory should be disconnected from a city, does not authorize the court to do as it pleases; the statute is

mandatory .

The aff must be tied to the implementation of the plan

Extra T is a voter- proves the resolution is insufficient, allows the aff to moot links, is unpredictable, severing makes it a no cost option

2

PAD legalization requires regulatory structure & safeguardsMiller et al. 2k [Dr. Franklin Miller, Penn Center for Bioethics, "Assisted Suicide Compared with Refusal of Treatment: A Valid Distinction?", Annals of Internal Medicine, 132 (6), p. 473, ebsco]cd

The Supreme Court firmly endorsed the distinction between refusal of treatment and assisted suicide, thereby rejecting the logic of the Second Circuit Court that the state lacks any rational grounds for prohibiting assisted suicide for competent, terminally ill patients. Maintaining the distinction, however, does not settle the issue of whether assisted suicide for competent, terminally ill patients by means of prescribed lethal medication should remain prohibited by law. Prohibition compared with legalization is a matter of policy that the Court wisely left to the states, which can decide it democratically.

Nevertheless, the distinction between refusal of life-sustaining treatment and assisted suicide has important policy implications for the debate over whether and how to legalize assisted suicide (23). Critical issues include the scope of a possible legal option of physician-assisted suicide and the nature of appropriate regulatory safeguards.

Violation: The aff is decrim – they only allow the right to assisted dying without a regulatory regime

Ground – We lose all regulation DA’s and CP’s

Education - No core topic discussion of regulations

Voter for fairness and education

3

Dems will winNate Cohn 10/30 covers elections, polling and demographics for The Upshot, a Times politics and policy site. Previously, he was a staff writer for The New Republic. Before entering journalism, he was a research assistant and Scoville Fellow at the Stimson Center, where he contributed to analysis of South Asia and the defense budget. “Why Polls Tend to Undercount Democrats,” 10-30-14, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/upshot/why-polls-tend-to-undercount-democrats.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1, DOA: 10-30-14, y2k

Polls show that the Republicans have an advantage in the fight for control of the Senate. They lead in enough states to win control, and they have additional

opportunities in North Carolina and New Hampshire to make up for potential upsets. As Election Day nears, Democratic hopes increasingly hinge on the possibility that the

polls will simply prove wrong. But that possibility is not far-fetched . The polls have generally underestimated Democrats in

recent years, and there are reasons to think it could happen again. In 2010, the polls underestimated the Democrats in every competitive Senate race by an average of 3.1 percentage

points, based on data from The Huffington Post’s Pollster model. In 2012, pre-election polls underestimated President Obama in nine of the 10 battleground states by an average of 2 percentage

points. A couple of elections in which polls tilt slightly Republican aren’t enough to prove anything. The polls have erred before, only to prove fine over the longer term. But the reasons to think that today’s polls underestimate Democrats are not based on just the last few years of results . They are also based on a fairly diverse set of methodological arguments , supported by extensive research , suggesting that many of today’s polls struggle to reach Democratic -leaning groups . “The problems that we’re having with getting representative samples tend to lead us toward people who tend not to be Democrats,” said Scott

Keeter, the director of survey research at the Pew Research Center. The most highly regarded pollsters, like those at Pew, have made many adjustments to compensate. But other polls,

including many of those informing polling averages and Senate forecasting models, are not nearly as high in quality. Another highly

regarded pollster, who requested anonymity, put it more bluntly, calling the new challenges “scary.” Many pollsters are reluctant to say things on the record that might undermine confidence in their own polling; others are unwilling to say anything at all, even to offer basic methodological information.

Plan sparks controversial debate over the ACA---mobilizes massive oppositions and breaks DemsTaylor E. Purvis 12, Yale University, “Debating Death: Religion, Politics, and the Oregon Death With Dignity Act,” Yale J Biol Med. Jun 2012; 85(2): 271–284, DOA: 9-15-14, y2k

The 1994 legalization of physician-assisted suicide in Oregon arose from a growing lack of deference to medical authority, emphasis on patient autonomy, and increasing support of patients’ right to die. Oregon was a prime location for the first physician-assisted

suicide law, with a progressive political history, a recent statewide health care reform bill, and a population wary of religious political influence. During the 1994 and 1997 physician-assisted

suicide campaigns, organizations that supported physician-assisted suicide appealed to voters’ desires for patient choice and control and exploited anti-Catholic sentiment. Religious organizations that opposed the Act, such as the Catholic Church, responded by mobilizing Church members and reminding voters of the religious and

moral implications of physician-assisted suicide. Ultimately, the public discussion surrounding the 1994 Oregon Death With Dignity Act resolved very little in the ongoing debate over how to properly balance patient autonomy, physician authority, and dignity at the end of life.18 After the

legalization of physician-assisted suicide in Oregon, similar debates took place in several U.S. states. In 2008, Washington State followed in Oregon’s footsteps and legalized physician-assisted suicide through a citizens’ initiative [58]. A year later, the Montana Supreme Court held that physician-assisted suicide did not violate public policy and that doctors who helped patients commit

suicide could not be prosecuted [58]. The debates present in the 1994 and 1997 campaigns served as a template for what would eventually become a nation-wide conflict. Concerns over physician authority and the doctor-patient relationship have continued to shape current public discussions about end-of-life care and public health policy.19 Rhetoric and themes from the Oregon

physician-assisted suicide campaigns would arise in discussions of national health care reform under the Obama administration. For

example, opponents of physician-assisted suicide criticized the 1994 Measure 16 as “open to abuse because it . . . leaves those without access to good health care vulnerable to facing suicide as

the least costly treatment option” [59].20 Similarly, politicians opposed to President Obama’s health care reform invoked fears of “ death panels” that would cave in to economic pressures and choose a patient’s death rather than continuing treatment .21 The

term “death panel” was first coined by Sarah Palin on August 7, 2009, on a Facebook posting, in which Palin criticized President Obama’s proposed America’s

Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (HR 3200): “[t]he America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s

‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide . . . whether they are worthy of health care” [60]. Palin was criticizing a section of the Affordable Health Choices Act that would make voluntary end-of-life care discussions, or “advance care planning,” reimbursable for Medicare patients [61]. The Catholic clergy lauded President Obama’s desire to provide health care coverage for America’s uninsured populations [62], but several outspoken Catholic leaders confirmed Palin’s fear that the advanced care planning section of the Act might “encourage our elderly to take their own lives rather than somehow become a ‘drain’ on the rest of us” [63]. Deacon Keith Fournier of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, argued that the section of the Act requiring end-of-life counseling reimbursement was closely linked to other sections mandating coverage for contraception — leaving Obama’s plan “fatally infected with the ideology of the culture of death at both ends of life” [63-64]. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) reiterated its support for comprehensive health insurance, while reminding Congress that “we strongly oppose . . . inclusion

of technologies that . . . fail to uphold the sancitity and dignity of life. No health care reform plan should compel us or others to pay for the destruction of human life” [65]. The Obama

administration responded to religious and conservative political criticism with appeals to patient autonomy familiar to the Oregon physician-assisted suicide

campaigns. One professor cited by the administration explained that “end-of-life discussions between doctor and patient help ensure that one gets the care one wants . . . [and] protect patient autonomy” [66]. Physician groups, including the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians, also spoke out in support of the regulation, emphasizing that advance care planning protected patient’s wishes at the end of life [67]. Some physicians even used personal anecdotes to marshal support for reimbursement of end-of-life care discussions. In the Annals of Internal Medicine, Dr. Meltem Zeytinoglu told of his mother’s experience of making end-of-life treatment decisions during the final stages of terminal breast cancer. He argued that discussions early on about treatment options could have made his mother’s final moments more comfortable, and that these conversations “empower [patients] with the information they need to

make the decisions that are best for them” [68]. Despite these efforts, conservative opponents of health care reform continued to use the phrase “death panels ” after Palin cointed the term, in what bioethicist George J. Annas deems “a rhetorical device to block any rational discussion of either death generally or end of life care in particular” [69]. Ultimately, Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a similar bill that was eventually

signed into law in 2010, left out the advance care planning reimbursement requirement for fear of political backlash [70]. Whether the policy in question is aid-in- dying or changes to health insurance systems, national concerns with the doctor-patient relationship, patient autonomy, medical authority, and potential for patient abuse continue to play formative roles in American discussions about health care. The conflict in Oregon marked the beginning of the now nationwide problem of determining if and when a terminally ill person can choose

to die.

GOP control causes Keystone pipeline---veto and filibuster failsCSM 14, Christian Science Monitor, "Keystone XL: first on a Republican Senate’s to-do list?," 8-12-2014, http://www.csm-onitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2014/0812/Keystone-XL-first-on-a-Republican-Senate-s-to-do-list, DOA: 8-31-2014, y2k

WASHINGTON — If Republicans capture the Senate in November’s midterm elections, it could be the moment oil and gas advocates on

both sides of the aisle have been eagerly awaiting. Issues like Keystone XL , crude oil exports, and liquefied natural gas exports have gained little traction in the current , divided Congress. Republicans in the House have been unable to collaborate with the Democratic Senate on energy legislation. Partisan cross-fire has even torpedoed legislation with bipartisan support , like the Shaheen-Portman energy

efficiency bill. But that could change in November. With continued Republican control of the House all but assured, the only open question is the Senate. And there’s a real chance the Republicans could narrowly take the chamber, and start acting on energy issues alongside Republicans in the House.

Those actions would likely have bipartisan support , which would make for low-hanging fruit that a Republican-led Congress could quickly bring to a vote . Many Democrats are already pushing for votes on energy matters like Keystone XL, hoping to win public support in a contested midterm election year. “If [Democrats] narrowly lose, the president could well end up with a Keystone bill on his desk in early 2015 ,” says William Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

“And then he would have to make an up-or-down decision.” For years the Obama administration has delayed a decision on Keystone XL, which requires State Department approval. The president has pledged to approve the divisive pipeline only if it “does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution,” as he said in a speech last summer. In February, the project hit another hurdle when a district court judge in Nebraska overturned the governor’s approval of the pipeline’s route through the state. The Nebraska Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments on the case in September, but a final decision likely won’t come until next year. Environmentalists blast the proposed pipeline as a threat to water and wildlife – a project that will encourage even more climate-altering fossil fuel consumption. But the oil and gas industry touts Keystone XL’s potential to increase US energy security by increasing imports from Canada. Keystone XL would carry 830,000 barrels of Alberta oil sands (or tar sands) and North Dakota tight oil to US Gulf Coast refineries every day. A State Department study earlier this year indicated it would result in a maximum of 27 million tons of additional carbon dioxide emissions, or possibly less. A study published Sunday in Nature Climate Change puts the figure four times higher – roughly 121 million tons. Either way, many observers call those figures a drop in the bucket. “In the total scope of global emissions, 30 million tons isn’t much,” says Charles Ebinger, director of the Brookings’ Energy Security Initiative, in a telephone interview Monday. Republicans in the House have passed a flurry of energy legislation this year and last, ranging from measures that would restrict the EPA’s regulatory authority, approve Keystone XL, and make drilling easier on public lands. And in the run up to the midterm elections, House Republicans are pushing the Senate for action on energy. Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada “has refused to bring up so many common-sense measures that would most likely be easily passed with bipartisan support,” Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R) of Missouri said Monday, according to The Hill. “They include legislation approving construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and other bills supporting efforts to secure more energy for America.” The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources – chaired by Mary Landrieu (D) of Louisiana – has pushed for Keystone, but has

been blocked by Mr. Reid. “Republicans are united on Keystone XL ,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) of Alaska said in a June statement after the Senate Energy

Committee passed legislation approving the pipeline. “But the Democratic majority leader is the only person who can bring it up for a vote before the full Senate. The ball is now in his court.” Reid did give Republicans the opportunity to vote on Keystone XL earlier this year, on the condition that the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill passed. But Republicans balked and filibustered the bill, criticizing Reid’s refusal to allow Republicans to tack unrelated amendments onto the bill. “They have held this bill hostage, this energy efficiency bill, as demand after

demand has been met but even now they are still seeking a ransom,” Reid said when Republicans blocked Shaheen-Portman. But if Republicans control Congress after the elections, they’ll have the support of some Democrats on their energy agenda – specifically Keystone XL. “This has truly, strong bipartisan support in the Senate and in the House,” Senator Joe Manchin (D) of West Virginia said of Keystone XL approval at a RealClearPolitics

US energy forum in January. “And why the president and the administration [are] hunkered down and not moving forward is beyond my understanding.” Of course, Obama still holds veto power, but blocking bipartisan legislation approved by both chamber s of Congress would not be the most politically desirable option for a president. Keystone XL is only the beginning, according to Mr. Ebinger. “It’s the same kind of debate we’re having on lifting the ban on crude oil exports,”

Ebinger says. The oil exports ban could also enter the political fray if Republicans win control of both chambers. Opponents of the ban – which was put in place for energy security purposes after the 1973 Arab oil embargo – say it is an anachronism in an era of new US energy wealth. But lifting the ban could raise domestic energy prices, supporters contend, and exacerbate the environmental impact of oil extraction. A similar back-and-forth is taking place over natural gas exports, part of a larger conversation to define US energy policy in an era of booming domestic oil and gas production, Ebinger says.

Keystone pipeline fuels bitumen extraction---causes extinction and collapses boreal forestsPeter Custers 11, International Correspondent for The Daily Star, 10-20-11, “The Keystone XL pipeline: Will humanity's survival interests prevail?” http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=207202 accessed date: 12-30-11] y2k

The stakes for oil corporations involved in the project are large, very large. But so are the stakes for environmental activists fighting the threat of climate change. In August last, well over a thousand people courted arrest in front of the

White House in Washington D.C. The target of their anger was a huge project for construction of an oil pipeline called Keystone XL . The new pipeline, if materialised, will run from the province of Alberta in Canada throughout the entire length of the United States, and all the way up to oil refineries located in Texas. Extra large, XL, the

pipeline surely will be -- 1,700 miles in length, as compared with the existing Keystone pipeline which is 1,200 miles long. Furthermore, the construction project does not stand alone, but is part and parcel of a scheme aimed at expanding the extraction of bitumen , an unconventional type of oil produced from tar sands .

Canada is where the largest amount of bitumen is extracted worldwide , much of it being exported to the US. If US President Obama gives the green light and Keystone XL is built, the extraction of bitumen is expected to double -- from roughly 900,000 barrels to 1.8 million barrels per day! Hence, the

lobbying by Canadian and international oil corporations is intense. Since the end of last year, the Keystone scheme has become a major public controversy in the US. To understand why, it is necessary to look briefly at the nature of

bitumen extraction. This unconventional oil is basically mined in two ways. In surface mining, trees and plant cover are stripped from the top-layers of the soil so as to expose the bitumen located beneath. Here there is massive digging: two tons of bitumen-rich material need to be collected to obtain one barrel of oil. Hence, the open pit mining results in huge, gaping holes in the earth , scarring the landscape. But the main method used to reach bitumen is called in-situ mining, where high-pressure steam is injected into layers of bitumen-rich soil below the surface, to separate the oil from the sands and make sure it can be piped to

the surface. Here, water needs to be heated in order to produce steam, which in turn requires huge quantities of energy. Both

methods of mining reportedly require large quantities of water, from 3 to 7 barrels of water per 1 barrel of oil! Much of the polluted water ends up in lake-size tailing ponds. And this is only one of the environmentally destructive

consequences of bitumen extraction. Its mining also results in destruction of huge chunks of boreal forests , in loss of biodiversity and in oil spills , as the bitumen is transported towards US refineries. One of the spills US opponents of the Keystone XL project have referred to, is the one caused by the existing Keystone pipeline, which has led to

pollution of a vast stretch of the Kalamazoo river. These environmental implications of bitumen extraction and transportation can in no way be belittled . Yet, there is one implication of the scheme that is truly global in kind, threatening the survival of humanity . Worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) in 2010 reached record levels. Against this backdrop, the danger that Canadian and US emissions of green housegases will increase due to expanded extraction of bitumen, concerns humanity as a whole . And the impact on emissions to all accounts will be dramatically negative. Surely, quantitative assessments vary, but they all point in the same direction. According to a peer-reviewed study of Canada's environmental ministry released in August, Canadian emissions of GHG are set to increase, perhaps even double, between 2005 and 2020 if oil sand extraction be

expanded. The Agency for Environmental Protection (EPA) a US governmental institution, has calculated that CO2 emissions from extraction and up to the sale of tar sands oil at gasoline stations, are 82% higher for tar sand oil than

for conventional crude. Calculations put forward by independent critics of the pipeline project are even higher. The Polaris Institute , a Canadian research centre, cites data indicating that emissions in the case of bitumen extraction are three to four times the normal rate (!). Figures on emissions put forward by the International Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC ) too indicate that any extraction of tar sands oil is prohibitive.

Hence, opponents of the Keystone XL project believe that all attempts aimed at preventing accelerated climate change will be undermined if the Canadian and US governments fail to scrap the pipeline project. Yet, if Keystone XL is an insane project when discussed from the perspective of humanity's survival,

how can the adamant attitude of the oil corporations be explained Is this simply a question of corporate greed, and the desire to reap extraordinary profits The answer seems less definite at first. Profitability of tar sands extraction was not assured for a long time. Mining bitumen is expensive, it can only be assured if the market price of crude oil stays at a high level -- such as the $90 plus level prevailing at the moment. Hence, to clarify the behaviour of oil corporations seeking to extract bitumen, one needs to refer to the historical peak oil production has reached: the fact that oil extraction from conventional sources in 2006 reached an all time high, as the International Energy Agency (IEA), the institution defending the interests of Western oil consumers, admitted late last year. Since the present high market price of crude is not caused by conjunctural factors, but is the outcome of the depletion of conventional

sources, extraction of crude from tar sands has become very profitable. One therefore understands the pressure that is building up on policymakers. They are asked to scrap their climate change agenda and prioritise a corporate agenda, which by all accounts is threatening for humanity and other species on earth. It is important to note that opposition to the project does not come just from climate change and environmental activists. Their opposition is crucial: in December 2010

a campaign against tar sands oil extraction was launched, which is being supported by the entire range of US environmental organisations. But there is more. In June, 2010, 50 members of the US Congress spoke out against construction of the pipeline. Further, the chairperson of the House Energy and Commerce

Committee Henry Waxman has urged the US State Department, which bears responsibility because the planned pipeline is cross-border, to block the project. So

far the State Department has only drafted environmental assessments of the scheme deemed scandalous. Meanwhile, President Obama has been sitting on the fence instead of rejecting the scheme outright. In fact, his statements on tar

sand extraction, made during his visit to Canada in 2009, indicate that he is bending over towards the oil lobby and might well bury the pledges to fight climate change that he made when canvassing for the presidency. The climate dangers heralding from tar sand oil extraction are twofold: a massive loss of Canadian boreal forests

which presently act as a reserve of CO2; plus dramatically increased emissions of GHG. Hence, if the project is approved , Canada will surely default on the obligations it undertook under the Kyoto Protocol . And any commitments Obama has made will become meaningless . Shouldn't Bangladesh and other vulnerable countries grill the two, the American and Canadian governments, when

the next World Climate Conference is held in November.

Boreal forest solves extinctionPAC ‘No Date (Pimachiowin Aki Campaign, [“The Campaign for The Land that Gives Life–Pimachiowin Aki” http://www.landthatgiveslife.com/wp-content/uploads/FAQ.pdf accessed date: 12-30-11] y2k

Like the Amazon rainforest in South America, scientists maintain that the boreal forest is crucial to the survival of the human race because its trees serve as The Lungs of the Earth —providing oxygen and filtering pollution to ultimately help keep the earth a healthy place to live . Like all boreal forests, The Land that Gives Life absorbs and stores carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as its wetlands filter and clean millions of gallons of water on a daily basis—several major reasons that make it a prime candidate as a

World Heritage Site. The Land that Gives Life is part of the largest area of undeveloped boreal forest in the world. It is an integral part of the worldwide 1,000-kilometre thick, green belt of coniferous trees that separates the frozen tundra from the warmer conditions further south. Filled with vast shimmering freshwater lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands, teeming with fish and

aquatic life, The Land that Gives Life is a natural habitat for abundant wildlife , among them moose, bear, bald eagles, hawks and songbirds—all within this vast section of the Canadian granite-shield . Home to threatened species such as the woodland

caribou and the lake sturgeon, The Land that Gives Life still very much resembles the same forest that started life in eastern Manitoba and northern Ontario over 5,000 years ago—roughly as

long as recorded human history. The Land that Gives Life’s community members believe their homeland meets UNESCO’s criteria. They believe that it is a shining example of outstanding universal value and that the world will benefit from protecting and preserving it now and for generations to come.

4

TEXT: The United States should increase End of Life care by establishing State Advisory Council modelled off of the Maryland State Advisory Council on Quality Care at the End of Life, Palliative Care Education Centers and establishing fellowships for palliative care, and awarding grants and contracts to doctors who teach and practice palliative care.

CP expands access to palliative and End of Life careACSCAN 13, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, "Crucial Legislation Would Improve Patients’ Quality of Life « ACS CAN," 3-22-2013, No Publication, http://www.acscan.org/content/media-center/crucial-legislation-would-improve-patients-quality-of-life-2/, DOA: 10-22-2014, y2k

The “Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act” (S.641 and H.R. 1339), would begin to address a serious shortage of health professionals trained in patient palliative care. The bill would create up to 24 Palliative Care Education Centers at medical

schools across the country to expand interdisciplinary training, as well as establish fellowships that would provide faculty in medical schools and other health profession schools short-term intensive courses focused on palliative care. Faculty would be able to use the fellowships to upgrade their knowledge for the care of individuals with serious illnesses, and enhance their interdisciplinary teaching skills.

“Palliative care is a big change in health care delivery because it improves the quality of care for seriously ill patients without increasing overall costs. Patients want it because it gives them and their families the support they need when they’re dealing with a serious illness. That’s why palliative care is one the fastest growing trends in health care, and why we need more trained professionals in the field,” said Chris Hansen, president of ACS CAN, the advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society. “With improved access to palliative care, patients enjoy a better quality of life as they move toward their ultimate goal, which is to get well and to restore their independence.”

Advisory Council is key to effective implementation and collaborationRushton & Schwartz 11, Cynda Hylton Rushton, Ph.D., R.N., Johns Hopkins University Schools of Nursing and Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland—AND—Jack Schwartz, J.D. University of Maryland School of Law, “A Legislatively Mandated Council: A Model for Palliative Care Policy Integration,” JOURNAL OF PALLIATIVE MEDICINE, Volume 14, Number 11, 2011, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21988487, DOA: 10-22-14, y2k

Improving care for patients nearing the end of life has an important public policy dimension, because ‘‘legal, organizational, and economic obstacles conspire to obstruct reliably excellent

care.’’1 Although public discourse about end-of-life care can be subverted for short-term political gain,2 care delivery for seriously ill patients and its financing are inevitable and legitimate issues in health care reform initiatives. 3 For example, well-integrated palliative care and hospice services should be a core component of the patient-centered focus required of accountable care organizations.4 Yet, this aspect of

coordinated, patient-centered care will suffer if state law and policy pose significant barriers to effective advance care planning and implementation. The importance of the policy dimension has been recognized by recent major philanthropic

initiatives aimed at improving end-of-life care . For example, the Open Society Institute’s Project on Death in America identified ‘‘the shaping of governmental

and institutional policy’’ as a priority area for its grant funding.5 In a report issued by Last Acts, a national coalition supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, much attention was given to state policies on advance directives and pain management.6 Further, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Community-State Partnerships to Improve End-of-Life Care, an $11.25 million program that supported state and local coalitions in about half the states, was based on the premise that state policy markedly affects endof- life care.7 At the federal level, even before the uproar over advance care planning provisions in health care reform legislation, entities within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) produced extensive analyses on this topic.8,9 The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization identified the development of ‘‘a comprehensive end-of-life care public policy agenda’’ as one of its strategic areas.10 The National Priorities Partnership, comprising 48 member organizations and offering consultative support to DHHS, has identified palliative and end-of-life care as one of its key priority areas.11

Advocates from divergent perspectives agree that policy making by state legislatures and courts can dramatically affect the nature and quality of end-of-life care. For example, Americans United for Life reported on approximately 90 bills related to end-of-life issues considered by state legislatures in 2010.12

Compassion and Choices, a ‘‘choice-in-dying’’ advocacy organization, has identified ‘‘the trend in the states to improve end of life choices’’ and has an active state-court litigation agenda.13

State-level activity is of interest not only to organizations with their own ideological premises but also to clinicians and others seeking the optimal policy environment for good end-of-life care . Mechanisms are needed to foster discussion of policy choices, identify areas of general agreement, and clarify possible areas of disagreement. The

Maryland State Advisory Council on Quality Care at the End of Life (MSAC), created by legislation as a permanent part of

Maryland government, is one such mechanism. Massachusetts has created a similar statutory entity,14 but this approach remains rare. Another state, West Virginia, has a

legislatively supported, universitybased educational and resource center.15 Other models worthy of consideration and refinement include time-limited groups established by executive order, such as the former Michigan Commission on End of Life Care,16 or nongovernmental coalitions, such as the California Coalition for Compassionate Care.17 This article describes the rationale for creating the MSAC, its operational features, and some of its successes and challenges. Given state-to-state variation in many aspects of health care organization and financing,18 as well as political climate, we do not present the MSAC as a model to be adopted in every state. However, a well-considered approach to state-level policy analysis and advocacy is essential. Our account is intended to help inform the work of groups looking to influence policy making in other states.

DA’s to the plan are net benefits

5

The affirmative is a radical escape from confronting the absurd notion that life has no meaning – This is giving in to one’s fate, eradicating meaning to existence – Our alternative is to revolt against the absurd by living in the face of this crisis of meaning Camus 55 [Albert, novelist, thinker, not an existentialist, ‘The myth of Sisyphus, and other essays’]cd

Now I can broach the notion of suicide. It has already been felt what solution might be given. At this point the problem is reversed. It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning. Living an experience , a particular fate, is accepting it fully . Now, no one will live this fate , knowing it to be absurd, unless he does everything to keep before him that absurd brought to light by consciousness. Negating one of the terms of the opposition on which he lives amounts to escaping it. To abolish conscious revolt is to elude the problem. The theme of permanent revolution is thus carried into individual experience. Living is keeping the absurd alive. Keeping it alive is, above all, contemplating it. Unlike Eurydice, the absurd dies only when we turn

away from it. One of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity . It is an insistence upon an impossible transparency . It challenges the world anew every second. Just as danger

provided man the unique opportunity of seizing awareness, so metaphysical revolt extends awareness to the whole of experience. It is that

constant presence of man in his own eyes. It is not aspiration, for it is devoid of hope. That revolt is the certainly of a crushing fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it. This is where it is seen to what a degree absurd experience is remote from suicide. It may be thought that suicide follows revolt—but wrongly . For it does not represent the logical outcome of revolt. It is just the contrary by the consent it presupposes. Suicide, like the leap, is acceptance at its extreme. Everything is over and man returns to his essential history . His future, his unique and dreadful future—he sees and rushes toward it . In its way, suicide

settles the absurd. It engulfs the absurd in the same death. But I know that in order to keep alive, the absurd cannot be settled. It escapes suicide to the extent that it is simultaneously awareness and rejection of death. It is, at the extreme limit of the condemned man’s last thought, that shoelace that despite

everything he sees a few yards away, on the very brink of his dizzying fall. The contrary of suicide, in fact, is the man condemned to death.

That revolt gives life its value. Spread out over the whole length of a life, it restores its majesty to that life. To a man devoid of blinders,

there is no finer sight than that of the intelligence at grips with a reality that transcends it. The sight of human pride is unequaled. No disparagement is of any use. That discipline that the mind imposes on itself, that will conjured up out of nothing, that face-to-face struggle have something

exceptional about them. To impoverish that reality whose inhumanity constitutes man’s majesty is tantamount to impoverishing him himself. I understand then why the doctrines that explain everything to me also debilitate me at the same time. They relieve me of the weight of my own life, and yet I must carry it alone. At this juncture, I cannot conceive that a skeptical metaphysics can be joined to an ethics of renunciation.

Consciousness and revolt, these rejections are the contrary of renunciation. Everything that is indomitable and passionate in a human

heart quickens them, on the contrary, with its own life. It is essential to die unreconciled and not of one’s own free will. Suicide is a repudiation . The absurd man can only drain everything to the bitter end, and deplete himself. The absurd is his extreme tension, which he maintains constantly by solitary effort, for he knows that in that consciousness and in that day-to-day revolt he gives proof of his only truth, which is defiance. This is a first consequence.

Case

Their analysis of ableism only recreates oppressive binaries, turns the caseHumphrey, Faculty of Applied Social Sciences, The Open University UK, 2000

(Jill C., Disability & Society, Vol. IS, No. I, “Researching Disability Politics, Or, Some Problems with the Social Model in Practice”, Proquest, p. 64-65)

In academic texts, the social model begins with an appreciation of the individual and collective experiences of disabled people (e.g. Swain a al, 1993). It goes on to elaborate the nature of a disabling society in terms of the physical environment, the political economy, the welfare state and sedimented stereotypes (e.g. Barnes et ah, 1999). Finally, it endorses a critical or emancipatory paradigm of research (e.g. Barnes & Mercer 1997a). This analysis lends itself to a recognition of the array of diverse experiences of disabling barriers; a realistic appraisal of the need for broader

political coalitions to combat entrenched structural inequalities and cultural oppressions; and an openness about the potential for non-disabled people to contribute to critical theory and

research. In activist discourses, the emphasis is upon the fact that it is non-disabled people who have engineered the physical environment, dominated the political economy, managed welfare services, controlled research agendas, recycled pejorative labels and images, and translated these into eugenics policies. This analysis lends itself to a dichotomy between non-disabled and disabled people which becomes coterminous with the dichotomy between oppressors and oppressed; and this tightens the boundaries around the disabled identity , the disabled people's movement and disability research. Whilst this hermeneutic closure is designed to ward off incursions and, therefore, oppressions from non-disabled people, it may also have some unfortunate consequences.¶ I would like to illustrate these consequences by drawing upon a

research project involving the four self-organised groups (SOGs) for women, black people, disabled members, and lesbian and gay members in UNISON (see Humphrey, 1998, 1999). Material drawn directly from conversations and observations in the disabled members' group is supplemented by interview transcripts with members of the lesbian and gay group, my own personal

experiences of and reflections upon disability and discrimination, and recent developments in various social movements and critical research texts. The rest of the article depicts three problematic consequences of the social model in practice and redirects them back to the social model as critical questions which need to be addressed by its

proponents. First, there are questions of disability identity where a kind of 'purism' has been cultivated from the inside of the disability community . Here, it can be demonstrated that some people with certain types of impairments have not been welcomed into the disabled members1 group in UNISON, which means that the disability community is not yet inclusive, and that its membership has been skewed in a particular

direction. Second, there are questions of disability politics where a kind of 'separatism' has been instituted . Whilst the UNISON

constitution allows for separatism to be supplemented by both coalitions and transformations, these have been slow to materialise in practice, and the dearth of such checks and balances in the

wider disabled peoples* movement implies that the danger of developing a specific kind of disability ghetto is more acute. Third, there are questions of disability research where a kind of 'provisional-ism1 is suspended over the role of researchers . The most obvious dilemmas arise for the non-disabled researcher as would-be ally, but it is becoming clear that disabled academics can also be placed in a dilemmatic position, and it is doubtful whether any researcher can practise their craft to their own standards of excellence when operating under the provisos placed upon them by political campaigners.

Legalization of PAS causes mass killing without consents---safeguards don’t checkMarilyn Golden 14, a senior policy analyst with the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, "The danger of assisted suicide laws," 10-14-2014, CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/13/opinion/golden-assisted-suicide/, DOA: 10-21-2014, y2k

My heart goes out to Brittany Maynard, who is dying of brain cancer and who wrote last week about her desire for what is often referred to as "death with dignity." Yet while I have every

sympathy for her situation, it is important to remember that for every case such as this, there are hundreds -- or thousands -- more people who could be

significantly harmed if assisted suicide is legal. The legalization of assisted suicide always appears acceptable when the focus is solely on an

individual. But it is important to remember that doing so would have repercussions across all of society, and would put many people at risk of immense harm. After all, not every terminal prognosis is correct , and not everyone has a loving husband, family or support system. As an advocate working on behalf of disability rights for 37 years, and as someone who uses a wheelchair, I am all too familiar with

the explicit and implicit pressures faced by people living with chronic or serious disability or disease. But the reality is that legalizing assisted suicide is a deadly mix with the broken, profit-driven health care system we have in the United States. At less than $300 ,

assisted suicide is, to put it bluntly, the cheapest treatment for a terminal illness. This means that in places where assisted suicide is legal, coercion is

not even necessary. If life-sustaining expensive treatment is denied or even merely delayed, patients will be steered toward assisted suicide, where it is legal. This problem applies to government-funded health care as well. In 2008, came the story that Barbara Wagner, a Springfield, Oregon, woman diagnosed with lung cancer and prescribed a chemotherapy drug by her personal physician, had reportedly received a letter from the Oregon Health Plan stating that her chemotherapy treatment would not be covered. She said she was told that instead, they would pay for, among other things, her assisted suicide. "To say to someone: "We'll pay for you to die, but not for you to live" -- it's cruel," she said. Another Oregon resident, 53-year-old Randy Stroup, was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Like Wagner, Stroup was reportedly denied approval of his prescribed chemotherapy treatment and instead offered coverage for assisted suicide. Meanwhile,

where assisted suicide is legal, an heir or abusive caregiver may steer someone towards assisted suicide, witness the request, pick up the lethal dose, and even give the drug -- no witnesses are required at the death, so who would know? This can

occur despite the fact that diagnoses of terminal illness are often wrong, leading people to give up on treatment and lose good years of their lives. True, "safeguards" have been put in place where assisted suicide is legal. But in practical terms, they provide no protection. For example, people with a history of depression and suicide attempts have received the lethal drugs. Michael Freeland of Oregon reportedly had a 40-year history of significant depression, yet he received

lethal drugs in Oregon. These risks are simply not worth the price of assisted suicide . Available data suggests that pain is rarely the reason why people choose assisted suicide. Instead, most people do so because they fear burdening their

families or becoming disabled or dependent. Anyone dying in discomfort that is not otherwise relievable, may legally today, in all 50 states,

receive palliative sedation , wherein the patient is sedated to the point at which the discomfort is relieved while the dying process takes place peacefully. This means that today there is a legal solution to painful and uncomfortable deaths, one that does not raise the very serious problems of legalizing assisted suicide. The debate about assisted suicide is not new, but voters and elected officials grow very wary of it when they

learn the facts. Just this year alone, assisted suicide bills were rejected in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, and stalled in New Jersey, due to bipartisan, grassroots opposition from a broad coalition of groups spanning the political spectrum from left to right, including disability rights organizations, medical professionals and associations, palliative care specialists, hospice workers and faith-based organizations. Assisted suicide is a unique issue that breaks down ideological boundaries and requires us to consider those potentially most vulnerable in our

society. All this means that we should, as a society, strive for better options to address the fear and uncertainty articulated by Brittany Maynard. But

if assisted suicide is legal, some people's lives will be ended without their consent, through mistakes and abuse . No safeguards have ever been enacted or proposed that can properly prevent this outcome, one that can never be undone. Ultimately, when looking at

the bigger picture, and not just individual cases, one thing becomes clear: Any benefits from assisted suicide are simply not worth the real and significant risks of this dangerous public policy.

They only serve to commodify compassion toward disability through rhetorics of difference – rendering disability into viral difference, resulting in stereotyping and alienation. Roberts, , 7 (Jeff, The Rhetorical Structure of Disability: Bridging the Gap Between What is ‘Spoken’ and What is ‘Said’ with Song - Over-Signifying with Personhood Against the Backdrop of Disease-Centric Discourse, http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=37&ved=0CGkQFjAGOB4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbeardocs.baylor.edu%2Fxmlui%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F2104%2F5086%2FJeff_Roberts_Masters.pdf%3Fsequence%3D1&ei=hUL3T52RN4SlrQH1j6iLCQ&usg=AFQjCNHd4PB3kECHEjVxxEx07R2Oqb2EBg , Pg. 6-7,)

Just as disease-centric discourse creates these attitudes , imageries and actions rooted in notions of viral difference and hatred , it seems that any action towards people with disabilities conveyed in disease-centric discourse is premised on a notion of viral difference . Viral difference manifests itself not only in the actions and attitudes stemming from disease-centric discourse, but also in the rhetorical structure of diseasecentric discourse itself and its general deployment.

Actions which place a primacy on difference and its domestication in the acts of “acceptance of difference” are often justified as acts of “compassion ,” yet acts premised on such notions can never truly overcome difference, nor can they recognize and appreciate the alterity of the other necessary for ethical encounters. Deployment of disease-centric discourse represents and independent rhetorical act which , in the words of Emmanuel Levinas, “ thematizes” disability as difference allowing difference to obscure alterity and unique otherness by “standing in” for the individual subject in all encounters. In other words, difference in terms of disability subsumes the entirety of the person by reducing the individual to a mere condition of difference , as Lois Shepherd (2006) explains: ¶ On the other hand, however, focusing on the condition carries the risk of what Levinas calls "thematization." If the condition stands in for the person in evoking the right ethical response, i.e., compassion, then the condition may stand in for the person in other respects as well. In other words,

the condition is the person, and thus we need to know nothing more about the person than the existence of the condition . . .¶ A compassionate response that focuses on the condition of a person in a way that permits us to see her in terms of a theme can result in unfair prejudice and discrimination . Even when less noxious results follow, such a response inappropriately shortcuts the more intense inquiry that is required to determine the

needs and desires of that individual and can prevent the ethical response that is due . . .¶ . . . A compassionate response that thematizes a person as disabled can cause an underestimation of what that person can achieve and can thereby cut off opportunities for success, expression, respect, and self-worth. It can also result in alienation of people with disabilities as others cannot see beyond the apparent physical condition . The emphasis that advocates for people with disabilities place on language captures this concern that the focus of attention is properly placed on the person rather than the condition; advocates encourage the use of terms such as "person with a disability" rather than "the disabled person" so that the person comes first. (para.8.)

That turns the K – theorizing disability as excluded difference dooms the struggle for equality Roberts, Baylor University, Masters thesis in Communication, 7

(Jeff, The Rhetorical Structure of Disability: Bridging the Gap Between What is ‘Spoken’ and What is ‘Said’ with Song - Over-Signifying with Personhood Against the Backdrop of Disease-Centric Discourse, http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=37&ved=0CGkQFjAGOB4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbeardocs.baylor.edu%2Fxmlui%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F2104%2F5086%2FJeff_Roberts_Masters.pdf%3Fsequence%3D1&ei=hUL3T52RN4SlrQH1j6iLCQ&usg=AFQjCNHd4PB3kECHEjVxxEx07R2Oqb2EBg , Pg.7-8,)

Founding action towards people with disabilities upon notions of difference , placing a primacy on difference particularly in the context of incorporation, domestication, and acceptance of such difference, dooms the struggle for equality to failure . “Over recent centuries all forms of violent otherness have been incorporated , willingly or under threat of force, into a discourse of difference which simultaneously implies i nclusion and exclusion, recognition and discrimination (Baudrillard, 1993, p. 129).” Once the Native American “savage” became “accepted”

under U.S. law as “human,” or rather a different type of human, it was not long until viral hatred forced new boundaries of difference to be erected, and segregation of such difference to be enacted in the form of the reservation. Where the “savage” or “monster” is never understood, or assimilated, remaining radically exotic to the oppressive guise of society, when “accepted” by

society on the basis of “difference” viral racism allows only two options for the future: assimilation or extermination (Baudrillard, 1993). Similarly, modern medicine has facilitated society with an understanding of disability, allowing it to accept the “different” or “disabled” person under la w as “human ,” more specifically a “disabled human” in which is different from “normal” individuals, but none the less similar. “Madness, once its

exclusionary status had been revoked, was caught up in the far subtler toils of psychology (Baudrillard, 1993, p. 129).” As soon as society began to understand and c onsequentl y attempt to “accept” the “monster” other, the other traded its quality of foreign “monsterness” for qualities of “feebleness,” with the social acceptance of the others difference, the “monster” soon became the “mongoloid.” “Difference” annihilated the subaltern subject by making all that was foreign and radically

exotic within easy reach of societal understanding. With a compassion rooted in pity, and fear founded upon difference, society became locked into a mode of interaction with disability , and the individuals’ disability located itself within, which mandated oppression in the spirit of viral hatred.

Sick people are expensive state subjects, physician assisted dying is a capitalist mechanism of health care cost reduction and elimination of unwanted dispensable individuals – reinscribes biopolitical management Russel 99 [Marta is a freelance writer and author of Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract, “Dollars and Death”, California Disability Alliance, < http://disweb.org/issues/pas/marta1.html>] NG

Living in a neoliberal era, where the interests of business dominate government and public policy and in a climate that more and more measures one's worth by economic efficacy, demands that we scrutinize the "right" to die beyond a liberal expansion of individual rights . We must look at the timing of these proposals.Why assisted suicide now, with the increase of mysterious viruses and incurable illnesses like chronic fatigue, AIDS and fibromyalgia, which require costly drugs and long-term care? Why now, with managed care corporations rationing health care, and with public heath care under the budget ax?In his latest book, "Freedom to Die - People, Politics and the Right to Die Movement," Derek Humphrey, co-founder of the

Hemlock Society, the oldest and largest pro-euthanasia/assisted suicide group, says it will be the unspoken argument for assisted suicide - cost containment - that will ensure the eventual passage of laws legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia. Humphrey

argues it will be the drive to save health care dollars that will push public policy their direction, not the drive for increased autonomy (as the death with dignity slogans assure the public). Humphrey is right to make the connection. But some have unabashedly been

speaking the unspoken for years now.The convicted murderer Kevorkian exposed his real agenda in a Written Statement to Court(Aug. 17, 1990) "The voluntary self-elimination of individuals and mortally diseased or crippled lives taken collectively can only enhance preservation of public health and welfare."Courts are listening to this line of reasoning. When the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco ruled that

individuals have a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, it specifically targeted the handicapped as "beneficiaries," stating that it may be acceptable for "competent, terminally ill adults to take the economic welfare of their families and loved ones into consideration ¶ " when deciding whether to live or die, and defended the use of assisted suicide to control medical costs.An editorial in the Weekly Standard, the voice of the GOP majority concluded in 1995 , " Sick people are expensive.

The dead are a burden to no one. Years ago the child had whooping cough and died. Now that child grows up

to be a very expensive old man or woman. The only answer is some kind of rationing . Gingrich knows that."

The aff will only perpetuate the societal exclusion of disabled persons because it misdiagnoses the problem and precludes the critical analysis of capitalism necessary to create meaningful structural changeMARTA RUSSELL in 2k2 Disability & Society, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2002, pp. 117–135, What Disability Civil Rights

Cannot Do: employment and political economy, ebscohost

To explain such outcomes, I have sought to examine the relationship between politics, policy and economics—particularly with regard to the interests of business. Disability scholars such as Victor Finkelstein,

Michael Oliver, Colin Barnes, Paul Abberley, Nirmala Erevelles, Lennard Davis, Brendan Gleeson and others have advanced the position that the capitalist system —

particularly the commodi cation� of labour —is a crucial contributing factor to the lack of economic advancement of disabled people . Going back to Marx’s theory of absolute impoverishment, Ernest Mandel clarifies Marx’s observation that capitalism ‘throws out of the production process’ a section of the proletariat: unemployed, old people, disabled persons, the sick, etc .

(Mandel, 1962, p. 151) Marx calls these groups a part of the poorest stratum ‘bearing the stigmata of wage labor’ . As Mandel

says, ‘this analysis retains its full value, even under the “welfare” capitalism of today’ ( Mandel, 1962, p. 151). While others have made links

between capitalism and disablement my purpose has been to expose how modern capitalism perpetuates this substratum in the face of disabled peoples’ struggle for their place the US labour force. In this vein I have sought to expose systemic economic discrimination against disabled workers in a capitalist economy

that the ADA cannot address or remedy and will return to this matter below. I have also argued that ADA court failures have been prompted by capitalist opposition made more powerful in a neoliberal era, where conservative forces have politically achieved a more laissez faire, deregulated economy, successfully targeting regulationships they view as interfering with business for weakening or repeal (Russell 1998; pp. 109–111; 2000, p. 341). The philosophical momentum

for social justice that spurred the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and subsequent progressive court decisions in the 1960s and 1970s was well into decline by the 1990s when the ADA was passed. For example, in the era following passage of civil rights laws in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1968, the Republicans made dramatic inroads into Democratic victories that forged the civil rights movement, established the Of ce of Economic Opportunity and initiated the War on �Poverty during the Great Society. Presidents Reagan and Bush dismantled the entire Community Services Administration, responsible for driving much of the 1960s social change agenda by advancing human services, occupational safety, consumer protection and environmental protection laws. On the way out were civil rights and economic entitlements, replaced by a conservative thrust to reduce ‘big bad government’. The dominant agenda of the late 1970s and 1980s was bolstered by corporate goals, which emphasised globalisation and political dominance of government (McMahan, 1985). Increased international capital mobility and liberalised international trade have resulted in the transfer of more power to management, at the expense of labour. (Parenti, 1995, pp. 99–119, 271) Conservative forces targeted protective regulations for repeal or rollback that, in their view, interfered with business (Wolman & Colamosca, 1997; Mishel et al., 1999). Economic policy in the post-1979 period moved decisively toward a more laissez faire, deregulated approach. Industries like transportation and communications have been largely deregulated. Social protections, including safety, health and environmental regulations, the minimum wage, government transfer payments (welfare) and the unemployment insurance system all have been weakened. The ADA was no exception. It was watered down substantially to achieve Congressional consensus and Bush’s presidential approval (Pheiffer, 2000, p. 43). The most recent evidence that these forces remain intact: the Supreme Court’s weakening of the ADA in Garrett, Sutton, Murphy and Albertson’s disability employment decisions; the striking down of the Age Discrimination Act in Kimel v. Florida; and the invalidation of the Violence Against Women’s Act in United States v. Morrison. After years of dedicated civil rights activism in the 1950–60s the American civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King, Jr outgrew the liberal view that economic justice for blacks was possible through the enactment of civil rights laws geared to make race-based employment discrimination against the law. King realised that civil rights (even when coupled with economic expansion) could not solve the mass unemployment of black Americans. At the 1967 Southern Christian Leadership Conference convention Dr King implored the movement to: address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. There are 40 million poor people here. And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there 40 million poor people in America?’ And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy …’ (Washington, 1991, p. 250) For King, the theme of job creation in a capitalist economy was an ongoing and primary part of his peoples’ struggle for justice. ‘We need an economic bill of rights. This would guarantee a job to all people who want to work and are able to work …’ (King, 1968, p. 24) Today, almost 40 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, no economic rights have been enacted and black unemployment remains twice (8%) that of the of cial national rate (4.2%). This is so even when civil rights have been accompanied by af rmative action measures designed to promote hiring and remedy past race discrimination. The � �

ADA was not followed by af rmative action for disabled workers. There is no reason to believe disability civil rights outcomes will fair better. In practice, � civil rights , which primarily focus on attitudes and prejudice, have not given sufficient attention to the barriers that the economic structure and power relationships erect against the employment of disabled persons . This paper explores the shortcomings

of the liberalist ‘equal opportunity’ approach to employment. My emphasis will be on the political economy of disablement , on micro- and macroeconomic realities systemic to capitalism, which contribute to the high disabled unemployment rate. Class interests perpetuate the exclusion of disabled persons from the workforce through systemic business accounting practices and compulsory unemployment. If we conceptualise disablement as a product of the exploitative economic structure of capitalist society; one which creates the so-called disabled body to permit a small capitalist class to create the economic conditions necessary to accumulate vast wealth , then it becomes clear that anti-discrimination legislation , by failing to acknowledge the contradictions of promoting equal opportunity in class-based (unequal) society, is insufficient to solve the unemployment predicament of disabled persons . Instead, the liberal rights model serves to forestall criticism of relationships of power at the centre of the exclusion from employment and inequality that disabled persons face. This paper will offer such a

criticism.

Ethical policymaking must be grounded in consequences Isaac 02

(Jeffrey, Professor of Political Science and Center for the Study of Democracy and Public Life director, “Ends, Means, and Politics”, http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/ends-means-and-politics, Accessed 8-26-13, LKM)

Power is not a dirty word or an unfortunate feature of the world. It is the core of politics. Power is the ability to effect outcomes in the world.

Politics, in large part, involves contests over the distribution and use of power. To accomplish anything in the political world, one must attend to the means that are necessary to bring it about. And to develop such means is to develop, and to exercise, power. To say this is not to say that power is beyond moral- ity. It is to say that power is not reducible to morality. As writers such as Niccolo Machiavelli,

Max Weber, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hannah Arendt have taught, an unyielding concern with moral goodness undercuts political responsibility. The concern may be morally laudable, reflecting a kind of personal integrity, but it suffers from three fatal flaws: (1) It fails to see that the purity of one’s intention does not ensure the achievement of what one intends . Abjuring violence or refusing to make common cause with morally compromised parties may seem like the right thing; but if such tactics entail impotence, then it is hard to view them as serving any moral good beyond the clean con- science of their supporters; (2) it fails to see that in a world of real violence and injustice, moral purity is not simply a form of powerless- ness; it is often a form of complicity in injustice . This is why, from the standpoint of politics—as opposed to religion—

pacifism is always a potentially immoral stand. In categorically repudiating violence, it refuses in principle to oppose certain violent injustices with any effect; and (3) it fails to see that politics is as much about unintended consequences as it is about intentions; it is the effects of action, rather than the motives of action , that is most significant. Just as the alignment with “good” may engender impotence, it is often the pursuit of “good” that generates evil. This is the lesson of communism in the twentieth century: it is not enough that one’s goals be sincere or idealistic; it is equally important, always, to ask about the effects of pursuing these goals and to judge these effects in pragmatic and historically contextualized ways. Moral absolutism inhibits this judgment . It alienates those who are not true believers . It promotes arrogance. And it undermines political effectiveness .

Util is inevitable

Greene 02

(Joshua Greene, Department of Psychology, Princeton University. “A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY” NOVEMBER 2002. http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/GreeneWJH/Greene-Dissertation.pdf)

Some people who talk of balancing rights may think there is an algorithm for deciding which rights take priority over which. If that’s what we mean by 302

“balancing rights,” then we are wise to shun this sort of talk. Attempting to solve moral problems using a complex deontological algorithm is dogmatism at its most esoteric, but dogmatism all the same. However, it’s likely that when some people talk about “balancing competing rights and obligations” they are already thinking like consequentialists in spite of their use of deontological language . Once again, what deontological language does best is express the thoughts of people struck by strong, emotional moral intuitions:

“It doesn’t matter that you can save five people by pushing him to his death. To do this would be a violation of his rights!”19 That is why angry protesters say things like, “Animals Have Rights, Too!” rather than, “Animal Testing: The Harms Outweigh the Benefits!” Once again, rights talk captures the apparent clarity of the issue

and absoluteness of the answer. But sometimes rights talk persists long after the sense of clarity and absoluteness has faded. One thinks, for example, of the thousands of children whose lives are saved by drugs that were tested on animals and the “rights” of those children. One finds oneself balancing the “rights” on both sides by asking how many rabbit lives one is willing to sacrifice in order to save one human life, and so on,

and at the end of the day one’s underlying thought is as thoroughly consequentialist as can be, despite the deontological gloss. And what’s wrong with that? Nothing, except for the fact that the deontological gloss adds nothing and furthers the myth

that there really are “rights,” etc. Best to drop it. When deontological talk gets sophisticated, the thought it represents is either dogmatic in an esoteric sort of way or covertly consequentialist.

Extinction outweighs Bostrom 2

Nick Bostron, Department of Philosophy, Yale University, 2002, “Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards,” http://www.transhumanist.com/volume9/risks.html

Our approach to existential risks cannot be one of trial-and-error . There is no opportunity to learn from errors . The

reactive approach – see what happens, limit damages, and learn from experience – is unworkable. Rather, we must take a proactive approach. This requires foresight to anticipate new types of threats and a willingness to take decisive preventive action and to bear the costs (moral and economic) of such actions. We cannot necessarily rely on the institutions, moral norms, social attitudes or national security policies that developed from our experience with managing other sorts of risks. Existential risks are a

different kind of beast. We might find it hard to take them as seriously as we should simply because we have never yet witnessed such disasters.[5] Our collective fear-response is likely ill calibrated to the magnitude of threat. Reductions in existential risks are global public

goods [13] and may therefore be undersupplied by the market [14]. Existential risks are a menace for everybody and may require acting on the international plane. Respect for national sovereignty is not a legitimate excuse for failing to take countermeasures against a major existential risk. If we take into account the welfare of future generations, the harm done by existential risks is multiplied by another factor, the size of which depends on whether and how much we discount future benefits [15,16].

2NC

K

o/v

1 – Nihilism – The nihilistic logic of suicide legitimates murder and genocideCamus 54 [Albert, Nobel Prize for Literature in 57, existentialist philosopher, “The Rebel: An Essay on Man In Revolt”]cd

Equally, absolute nihilism, which accepts suicide as legitimate, leads, even more easily, to logical murder . If our age admits , with equanimity, that murder has its justifications, it is because of this indifference to life which is the mark of nihilism. Of course there have been periods of history in which the passion for life was so strong that it burst forth in criminal excesses. But these excesses were like the searing flame of

terrible delight. They were not the monotonous order of things established by an impoverished logic in whose eyes everything is equal. This logic has carried the values of suicide, on which our age has been nurtured, to their extreme logical consequence , which is legalized murder . It culminates, at the same time, in mass suicide . The most striking demonstration of this was provided by the Hitlerian apocalypse of 1945. Self-destruction meant nothing to those madmen, in their bomb-shelters, who were preparing for their own death and apotheosis. All that mattered was not to destroy oneself alone and to drag a whole world with one. In a way, the man who kills himself in solitude still preserves certain values since he, apparently, claims no rights over the lives of others. The proof of this is that he never makes use, in order to dominate other, of the enormous power and freedom of action which decision to die gives him.

3 – Authenticity

A. Their refusal to embrace the absurd prevents authentic existencePark 99 [James, Bachelor of Arts Degree, “Becoming More Authentic”]cd

This “ Authentic Existence ” may begin with a recognition of the fundamental absurdity and meaningless of human life . Existence contains no hidden meanings. We were born without instructions, without any reason for being. As we become

aware of our human condition, we find ourselves cast into the blind, purposeless whirl of existence. Out of this formlessness we must either create ourselves or allow ourselves to be shaped by the cultural forces around us. We must either choose or be chosen for. Because human existence contains no automatic purpose, we can center our lives around whatever purposes we choose. First we will probably try to find happiness —seeking many kinds of pleasure, comfort, and enjoyment in physical,

emotional, intellectual, and spiritual hedonism. But we may find the pursuit of happiness ultimately disappointing and turn our attention instead to the quest for meaning.

B. Inauthenticity destroys our autonomy and agency, killing meaningPark 6 [James, Philosophy Professor at the University of Minnesota, “Our Existential Predicament: Loneliness Depression Anxiety and Death”, p. 226]cd

We were born into a world of quiet conformity . Initially everything we do and say and think and believe has been done and said and thought and believed before. The activities we regard as worthy of our time and effort (learning, work,

play), the ultimate values and meanings we pursue (achievement, love, children), and the particular styles and forms thru which we pursue these goals have all been provided by our various human cultures. How different our lives are from the lives of ancient

'cavemen'! Unless we find ways to wrest control of our own lives from society, all of our decisions will continue to be made for us by the unnoticed forces of the cultures in which we live. We are not told which spouse to 'choose' or which job to take, but

how free are we to reject both marriage and work as basic styles of life? How have we been carried along so successfully by culture without noticing it? 'They' even hide the process by which 'they' have quietly relieved us of the 'burden' of making choices for ourselves. It remains a complete mystery who has really done the choosing. We are carried along by the 'nobody', without

making any real choices, becoming ever more deeply ensnared in inauthenticity . This process can be reversed only if we explicitly bring ourselves back from our lostness in the 'they'. But this bringing-back must have that kind of being by the neglect of which we have lost ourselves in inauthenticity.

4 – turn auto

A. Their refusal to embrace the absurd prevents authentic existencePark 99 [James, Bachelor of Arts Degree, “Becoming More Authentic”]cd

This “ Authentic Existence ” may begin with a recognition of the fundamental absurdity and meaningless of human life . Existence contains no hidden meanings. We were born without instructions, without any reason for being. As we become

aware of our human condition, we find ourselves cast into the blind, purposeless whirl of existence. Out of this formlessness we must either create ourselves or allow ourselves to be shaped by the cultural forces around us. We must either choose or be chosen for. Because human existence contains no automatic purpose, we can center our lives around whatever purposes we choose. First we will probably try to find happiness —seeking many kinds of pleasure, comfort, and enjoyment in physical,

emotional, intellectual, and spiritual hedonism. But we may find the pursuit of happiness ultimately disappointing and turn our attention instead to the quest for meaning.

B. Inauthenticity destroys our autonomy and agency, killing meaningPark 6 [James, Philosophy Professor at the University of Minnesota, “Our Existential Predicament: Loneliness Depression Anxiety and Death”, p. 226]cd

We were born into a world of quiet conformity . Initially everything we do and say and think and believe has been done and said and thought and believed before. The activities we regard as worthy of our time and effort (learning, work,

play), the ultimate values and meanings we pursue (achievement, love, children), and the particular styles and forms thru which we pursue these goals have all been provided by our various human cultures. How different our lives are from the lives of ancient

'cavemen'! Unless we find ways to wrest control of our own lives from society, all of our decisions will continue to be made for us by the unnoticed forces of the cultures in which we live. We are not told which spouse to 'choose' or which job to take, but

how free are we to reject both marriage and work as basic styles of life? How have we been carried along so successfully by culture without noticing it? 'They' even hide the process by which 'they' have quietly relieved us of the 'burden' of making choices for ourselves. It remains a complete mystery who has really done the choosing. We are carried along by the 'nobody', without making any real choices, becoming ever more deeply ensnared in inauthenticity . This process can be reversed only if we explicitly bring ourselves back from our lostness in the 'they'. But this bringing-back must have that kind of being by the neglect of which we have lost ourselves in inauthenticity.

A2: Suffering/Dying Now

Embracing absurdity creates fulfillment from despairPark 6 [James, Philosophy Professor at the University of Minnesota, “Our Existential Predicament: Loneliness Depression Anxiety and Death”, p. 164]cd

We are all looking for the meaning of life-pursuing happiness, seeking our places in the sun, trying to fulfill ourselves. How shall we spend our 600,000 hours of life? We have tried to fill the haunting hollowness by acquiring accumulating owning consuming but

money and possessions have not made us full. We have striven to create meaning by the works of our hands undertaking difficult tasks, exercising our special abilities, -achieving important goals, serving our fellow human beings. And yet, for all our accomplishments, we are still not satisfied. We have sought elusive happiness in marriage, hoping that a close,

warm, secure, permanent relationship would enable us to "live happily ever after. But no matter how good our relationships, we still feel an unfulfilled yearning, an unanswered question. Perhaps we thought that raising children would fill the empty longing. Altho they have

brought much happiness (and some sorrow) and we hope they will live after us and bring credit to our names, as parents we still find ourselves asking "Is this all?" And always we continue to seek enjoyment in leisure time: reading good books, going to the theater, traveling to interesting places, For our vacations or retirement, we escape to the countryside, the lake, the seashore, the mountains- away, away.

And although we can't think of anything new to do, we still feel incomplete and unfulfilled. Finally, we might turn to religion in our quest for peace and joy. We direct our efforts toward making our lives morally perfect. We work hard to earn or merit 'grace’, We discipline our feelings, hoping to achieve 'enlightenment’: We contort our minds, trying to believe the absurd. We plunge into ceremony and ritual, hoping to emerge as new persons. And we try to pull ourselves together by sheer will-power. But even our highest religious striving does

not bring peace and wholeness. Somewhere beyond all this acquiring, achieving, loving, nurturing, enjoying & believing lies an unexpected fulfillment, a consummation of being that far outdistances our most ambitious dreams. It is peace, joy, wholeness, satisfaction, meaning, harmony, completeness -being already at the goal of life, ultimate fulfillment. Nothing more is wanted or needed. This inner condition-of-being is unimprovably good.

A2 gend lang

Discourse doesn’t shape reality- it’s the other way around. Fram-Cohen 85 Michelle Fram-Cohen, freelance translator and interpreter between Hebrew and English that has published articles on literature, translation theory, and philosophy, 1985, “Reality, Language, Translation: What Makes Translation Possible,” Paper presented at the American Translators Association Conference, http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/essays/text/michelleframcohen//possibilityoftranslation.html

The idea that language is created inside one's mind independently of outside experience eliminates the possibility that the external world is the common source of all languages. But a common source of all languages underlies any attempt to explain the possibility of translation . Chomsky suggests that the common basis of all languages is universal phonetics and semantics, with the result that

"certain objects of human thoughts and mentality are essentially invariable across languages." (13) To the best of my knowledge Chomsky did not develop this idea in the direction of explaining the possibility of translation. In contrast, linguist Eugene Nida insists that outside experience is the common basis of all languages when he writes that "each language is different from all other languages in the ways in which the sets of verbal symbol classify the various elements of experience." (14) Nida did not provide the philosophical basis of the view that the external world is the common source of all languages. Such a basis can be found in the philosophy of Objectivism, originated by Ayn Rand. Objectivism, as its name implies, upholds the objectivity of reality. This

means that reality is independent of consciousness, consciousness being the means of perceiving reality, not of creating it . Rand defines language as "a code of visual-auditory symbols that denote concepts." (15) These symbols are the written or spoken words of any language. Concepts are defined as the "mental

integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted." (16) This means that concepts are abstractions of units perceived in reality . Since words denote concepts, words are the symbols of such abstractions ; words are the means of representing concepts in a language. Since reality provides the data from which we abstract and form concepts, reality is the source of all words--and of all languages. The very existence of translation demonstrates this fact. If there was no objective reality, there could be no similar concepts expressed in different verbal symbols. There could be no similarity between the content of different languages, and so, no translation. Translation is the transfer of conceptual knowledge from one language into another. It is the transfer of one set of symbols denoting concepts into another set of symbols denoting the same concepts. This process is possible because concepts have specific referents in reality. Even if a certain word and the concept it designates exist in one language but not in another, the referent this word and concept stand for nevertheless exists in reality, and can be referred to in translation by a descriptive phrase or neologism. Language is a means describing reality, and as such can and should expand to include newly discovered or

innovated objects in reality. The revival of the ancient Hebrew language in the late 19th Century demonstrated the dependence of language on outward reality. Those who wanted to use Hebrew had to innovate an enormous number of words in order to describe the new objects that did not confront the ancient Hebrew speakers. On the other hand, those objects that existed 2000 years ago could be referred to by the same words. Ancient Hebrew could not by itself provide a sufficient image of modern reality for modern users.

Case

Prefer utilitarianism – Deontological claims are subjective and utilitarianism provides a solid framework for rights based discussionsBagaric and Clarke 05 [Mirko Bagaric, B.A., LL.B. (with honors), LL.M., Ph.D., Head of Deakin Law School and Julie Clarke, Lecturer at Deakin Law School, "Not Enough Official Torture in the World? The Circumstances in Which Torture Is Morally Justifiable," Spring, 2005, University of San Francisco of Law Review 39 U.S.F. L. Rev. 581, lexis]cd

4. Explanation for the Influence of Rights Theory There are several responses to rights-based theorists. First, the fact that a belief or judgment is capable of moving and guiding human conduct says little about its truth - the widespread practice of burning "witches" being a case in point. Second, at the descriptive level, it is probably the case that the intuitive appeal of rights claims and the absolutist and forceful manner in which they are expressed has been normally sufficient to mask over fundamental logical deficiencies associated with the concept of rights. Claims couched in the language of rights seem to carry more emotive punch than equivalent claims grounded in the language of duties. For

whatever reason (perhaps due to the egocentric nature of rights discourse) the claim that "I have a right to life" appears to resonate more powerfully than the [*602] assertion that "you have a duty not to kill me." In effect, the much criticized meta-ethical theory of emotivism, n94 which provides that morality is a set of

utterances that express one's attitude with the aim of influencing the behavior of others, seems to provide at least a partial explanation for the influence of rights-based discourse. The real analysis, however, must move outside of the abstract and determine how these theories would respond to the use of torture in a real-life scenario. 5. Practical Application of Rights Theories and the Terrorist-Plane Scenario Despite the dazzling veneer of deontological rights-based theories and their influence on present day moral and legal discourse, when examined closely, such theories are unable to provide persuasive answers to central issues such as: What is the justification for rights? How can we distinguish real from fanciful rights? Which right takes priority in the event of conflicting rights? n95 Such intractable difficulties stem from the fact that contemporary rights theories lack a coherent foundation for rights. Tom Campbell has argued against certain rights-based theories on the basis that they are unable to provide a satisfactory account of the relationship between concrete rights (rights that provide a justification for political decisions by society in general) and more fundamental rights ("background rights") from which concrete rights are supposedly derived. n96 An even more fundamental flaw with rights theories, however, is that there is no defensible virtue that underpins the background interests from which narrower rights claims can be derived. When examined closely, the concept of non-consequentialist rights is vacuous at the epistemological level. It has been argued that attempts to ground concrete rights in virtues such as dignity, integrity, concern, and respect are unsound because resort to such ideals is arbitrary and leads to discrimination against certain members of the community (for example, those with severely limited cognitive functioning) [*603] or speciesism (the systematic discrimination against non-humans). n97 Ultimately, a non-consequentialist ethic provides no method for distinguishing between genuine and fanciful rights claims and is incapable of providing guidance regarding the ranking of rights in the event of a clash. It is not surprising then that nowadays all sorts of dubious rights claims have been advanced. Thus, we have a situation where individuals are able to hold a straight face and urge interests such as "the right to a tobacco-free job," the "right to sunshine," the "right of a father to be present in the delivery room," the "right to a sex break," n98 and even the "right to drink myself to death without interference." n99 A further flaw with many rights theories, including those of Dworkin and Nozick, is that an absolute right does not exist. Not even the right to life is sacrosanct. This is evident from the fact that all cultures sanction the use of lethal force in self-defense. And, indeed, torture - in the circumstances that we indicate is morally permissible - is in fact a manifestation of the right to self-defense, which extends to the right to defend another. By conceding that in some situations consequences must prevail, Dworkin's and Nozick's respective theories become unstable. Despite the absolute overtones of their theories and their insistence of the importance of the individual, Dworkin and Nozick would probably, yet reluctantly, respond to the terrorist-plane scenario by approving of torture in certain circumstances. Dworkin accepts that it is correct for a government to infringe on a right when it is necessary to protect a more important right or to ward off "some grave threat to society." n100 In a like manner, Nozick states that teleological considerations would take over to "avert moral catastrophe." n101 Although both fail to state, even loosely, at what point a great threat to society or a moral catastrophe exists, so that consequentialist considerations can legitimately "kick in" to guide conduct, it is tenable to argue that the loss of 300 innocent lives satisfies this [*604] criteria. When consequential considerations are admitted as being relevant, the theories become hybrid and the main theoretical advantage of a deontological theory, the absolute protection given to people against certain intrusions, is forsaken. This problem is heightened because, in both cases, we are given no guidance as to when consequentialist considerations become overriding. At this point rights theories collapse - they can neither fully rely on the theoretical justifications of deontological or consequentialist theories. Nearly twenty years ago, Hart said of rights theories, "It cannot be said that we have had ... a sufficiently detailed or adequately articulate theory showing the foundation for such rights and how they are related to other values ... . Indeed the revived doctrines of basic rights ... are in spite of much brilliance still unconvincing." n102 Nothing has changed to diminish the force of this objection. This may seem to be unduly dismissive of rights-based theories and to pay inadequate regard to the considerable moral reforms that have occurred against the backdrop of rights talk over the past half-century. It cannot be denied that rights claims have been an effective lever for social change. As Campbell correctly notes, rights have provided "a constant source of inspiration for the protection of individual liberty rights." n103 For example, recognition of the right to liberty resulted in the abolition of slavery and, more recently, the right of equality has been used as an effective weapon by women and other disempowered groups seeking greater employment and civil rights, such as the right to vote. There is no doubt that there is an ongoing need for moral discourse in the form of rights; "whether or not ... rights are intellectually defensible or culturally tolerant, we do have need of them, at least at the edges of civilization and in the tangle of international politics." n104 Rather, as is discussed below, the only manner in which rights can be substantiated is in the context of a consequentialist ethic. The criticism is with deontological rights-based moral theories and their absolutist overtones. Theories of this nature are incapable of providing answers to questions such as the existence and content of proposed rights. This view could obviously be criticized on the basis that if non-consequentialist rights are fanciful, then one has difficulty accounting for the significant changes to the moral landscape for which they have provided the catalyst. [*605] B. Torture and Utilitarianism There have been a range of consequentialist moral theories advanced, such as egoism and utilitarianism. The most cogent of these theories, and certainly the most influential in moral and political discourse, is hedonistic act utilitarianism. This theory provides that the morally right action is that which produces the greatest amount of happiness or pleasure and the least amount of pain or unhappiness. n105 Utilitarianism has received a lot of bad press over the past few decades, n106 resulting in its demise as the leading normative theory. There are several reasons for this. The main general argument against utilitarianism is that because it prioritizes net happiness over individual pursuits, it fails to safeguard fundamental individual interests. As a result of this, it has been argued that in some circumstances utilitarianism leads to horrendous outcomes, such as punishing the innocent n107 or forcing organ donations where the donations would maximize happiness by saving the lives of many or assisting those most in need. n108 These outcomes are essentially inflicting harsh pain of one person for the benefit of others. Another major criticism of utilitarianism is that it supposedly does not accord sufficient weight to individual interests. As noted above, it has been charged that only rights-based theories take seriously the distinction between human beings. This is in contrast to utilitarianism where the ultimate goal - happiness - is aggregative is nature. The happiness of any particular individual is trumped by the goal of net human happiness. Against a background of utilitarian ethic, torture is clearly justifiable where the harm caused to the agent will be offset by the increased happiness gained to other people. n109 Utilitarianism has been persuasively criticized in the eyes of many, precisely because it justifies supposedly [*606] egregious conduct of this nature. Thus, it can be argued that the fact that utilitarianism justifies

torture indicates that the theory is flawed. Historically, the same sort of argument has been used most forcefully in the context that utilitarianism may justify punishing the innocent. The issue of torturing the innocent is directly discussed in Part IV. The most telling theoretical objection against utilitarianism is that it permits punishment of the innocent. A famous illustration of the objection concerning punishing the innocent is McCloskey's small town sheriff example: Suppose a sheriff were faced with the choice of either framing a negro for a rape which had aroused white hostility to negroes (this particular negro being believed to be guilty) and thus preventing serious anti-negro riots which would probably lead to loss of life, or of allowing the riots to occur. If he were ... [a] utilitarian he would be committed to framing the negro. n110 1. Hard Cases Lead to Hard Decisions

A common utilitarian response to this dilemma is that such examples are impossible in the real world and hence need not be addressed. n111 Punishing the innocent may at times provide short term benefits, such as securing social stability. Nevertheless, these benefits are always more than offset by the likelihood of greater long term harm due to the loss of confidence in the legal system and the associated loss of security to all members of the community who will fear that they may be the next person framed, once the inevitable occurs and it is disclosed that an innocent person has been punished. But with only a little imagination, the above example can be tightened up by introducing considerations that significantly reduce or totally obviate the possibility of disclosure, so that the only logical utilitarian conclusion is to punish the innocent. n112 Even if the process of modifying [*607] the examples appears to far remove them from the real world, it is still a situation that the utilitarian must deal with. The more promising utilitarian response is not to attempt to deflect or avoid the conclusion that there may be some extreme situations where utilitarianism commits us to punishing the innocent or torturing individuals, but rather the correct approach is to accept this outcome and contend that, as horrible as this may seem on a pre-reflective level, on closer consideration it is not a matter that really insurmountably troubles our sensibilities to the extent that it entails that any theory that approves of such an outcome must necessarily be flawed. By drawing comparisons with other situations in

which we take the utilitarian option, it is contended that practices such as punishing the innocent and torture are not necessarily unacceptable. The view that punishing the innocent and torturing individuals is the morally correct action in some circumstances is consistent

with and accords with the decisions we as individuals and societies as a whole readily have made and continue to make when faced with extreme and desperate circumstances. Once we come to grips with the fact that our decisions in extreme situations will be compartmentalized to desperate predicaments, we do, and should, though perhaps somewhat

begrudgingly, take the utilitarian option. In the face of extreme situations, we are quite ready to accept that one should, or even must, sacrifice oneself or

others for the good of the whole. For example, in times of war we not only request our strongest and healthiest to fight to the death for the good of the community, but we often demand that they do so under threat of imprisonment or even death. Quite often they must battle against hopeless odds, in circumstances where we are aware that in all probability they are not coming back. n113 What is more: they must give their life. Not because they want to, not because they are bad, but merely because it would be good for the rest of us. This is classical utilitarian reasoning. Faced with the reality of the decisions we do make in such horrible situations, the examples proffered against utilitarianism about the terrible things it entails, such as punishing the innocent, lose their bite. [*608] Horrible situations make for appalling decisions whichever way we turn, but ultimately we do make the utilitarian choice because of our lack of true commitment to any higher moral virtue. By opting for the utilitarian line we are soothed by one saving grace: at least the level of harm has been minimized. When the good of many or the whole is at significant threat, we have no difficulty selecting certain classes of innocent individuals, whose only "flaw" is their sex, state of health, and date of birth to go in to bat for the rest of us. Their protests that they should not be compelled to go because it impinges on their civil, legal, or human rights to such matters as life and liberty, or their desperate appeals to other virtues such as justice or integrity, fall on obstinate ears; for this is serious stuff now - our lives (or other important interests) are at stake. Such appeals should be saved for rosier times. When advanced in theory, we can all "agree" that this is so. The decisions we do actually make in a real life crisis are the best evidence of the way we actually do prioritize important, competing principles and interests.

Matters such as rights and justice are important, but, in the end, are subservient to and make way for the ultimate matter of significance: general happiness. Bad as it seems, framing the African-American, imprisoning the innocent, and torturing the terrorist are

certainly no more horrendous than the decisions history has shown we have made in circumstances of monumental crisis. A pointed example is the decision by then English Prime Minister Winston Churchill to sacrifice the lives of the residents of Coventry in order not to alert the Germans that the English had deciphered German radio messages. On 14 November 1940 the English decoded plans that the Germans were about to air bomb Coventry. n114 If Coventry was evacuated or its inhabitants advised to take special precautions against the raid, the Germans would know that their code had been cracked, and the English would be unable to obtain future information about

the intentions of its enemy. n115 Churchill elected not to warn the citizens of Coventry, and many hundreds were killed in the raid that followed. Many innocent lives were sacrificed in order not to reveal the secret that would hopefully save many more lives in the future. n116 Significantly, such decisions have subsequently been immune [*609] from widespread or persuasive criticism. This shows not only that when pressed we do take the utilitarian option, but also that it is felt that this is the option we should take. Now, what we actually do does not justify what ought to be done. Morality is normative, not descriptive in nature: an "ought" cannot be derived from an "is." n117 Still, the above account is telling because the force of the "punishing the innocent" objection lies in the fact that it supposedly so troubles our moral consciousness that utilitarianism can thereby be dismissed because the outcome is so horrible that "there must be a mistake somewhere." But this claim loses its force when it is shown that punishing the innocent and torturing the culpable is, in fact, no worse than other activities that we condone. 2. The Role of Rights in Utilitarian Ethic The

criticism that utilitarianism has no place for rights must be responded to for the sake of completeness (and in an attempt to further redeem utilitarianism). Rights do in fact have a place in a utilitarian ethic, and, what is more, it is only against this background that rights can be explained and their source justified. Utilitarianism provides a sounder foundation for rights than any other competing theory. Indeed, for the utilitarian, the answer to why rights exist is simple: recognition of them best promotes general utility. n118 Their origin accordingly lies in the pursuit of happiness. Their content

is discovered through empirical observations regarding the patterns of behavior that best advance the utilitarian cause. The long association of utilitarianism [*610] and rights appears to have been forgotten by most. Over a century ago it was Mill, however, who proclaimed the right of free speech, contending that truth is important to the attainment of general happiness and this is best discovered by its competition with falsehood. n119 Difficulties in performing the utilitarian calculus regarding each decision make it desirable that we ascribe certain rights and interests to people that evidence shows tend to maximize happiness n120 - even more happiness than if we made all of our decisions without such guidelines. Rights save time and energy by serving as shortcuts to assist us in attaining desirable consequences. By labeling certain interests as rights, we are spared the tedious task of establishing the importance of a particular interest as a first premise in practical argument s . n121 There are also other reasons why performing the utilitarian calculus on each occasion may be counterproductive to the ultimate aim. Our capacity to gather and process information and our foresight are restricted by a large number of factors, including lack of time, indifference to the matter at hand, defects in reasoning, and so on. We are quite often not in a good position to assess all the possible alternatives and to determine the likely impact upon general happiness stemming from each alternative. Our ability to make the correct decision will be greatly assisted if we can narrow down the range of relevant

factors in light of pre-determined guidelines. History has shown that certain patterns of conduct and norms of behavior if observed are most conducive to promoting happiness . These observations are given expression in the form of rights that can be asserted in the absence of

evidence as to why adherence to them in the particular case would not maximize net happiness. Thus, importance of rights in a utilitarianism view do not have a life of their own (they are derivative not foundational), as is the case with deontological theories. Due to the derivative character of utilitarian rights, they do not carry the same degree of absolutism or "must be doneness" as those based on deontological theories . This is not a criticism of utilitarianism, however; indeed, this characteristic is a [*611] strength because it is farcical to claim that any right is absolute. Another advantage of utilitarianism is that only it provides a

mechanism for ranking rights and other interests. In the event of a clash, the victor is the right that will generate the most happiness. As the next part discusses, the balancing aspect of utilitarianism is the reason that it is particularly apposite to determining the circumstances in which torture is appropriate.

1NR

1NRPreserving existence precedes value to life questionsWapner 3 Paul Wapner, associate professor and director of the Global Environmental Policy Program at American University. “Leftist Criticism of "Nature" Environmental Protection in a Postmodern Age,” Dissent Winter 2003 http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/archives/2003/wi03/wapner.htm

All attempts to listen to nature are social constructions-except one. Even the most radical postmodernist must acknowledge the distinction between physical existence and non-existence . As I have said, postmodernists accept that there is a physical substratum to the phenomenal world even if they argue about the different meanings we ascribe to it. This acknowledgment of physical existence is crucial. We can't ascribe meaning to that which doesn't appear . What doesn't

exist can manifest no character. Put differently, yes, the postmodernist should rightly worry about interpreting nature's expressions. And all of us should be wary of

those who claim to speak on nature's behalf (including environmentalists who do that). But we need not doubt the simple idea that a prerequisite of

expression is existence. This in turn suggests that preserving the nonhuman world-in all its diverse embodiments-must be seen by eco-critics as a

fundamental good. Eco-critics must be supporters, in some fashion, of environmental preservation. Postmodernists reject the idea of a universal good. They

rightly acknowledge the difficulty of identifying a common value given the multiple contexts of our value-producing activity. In fact, if there is one thing they vehemently scorn, it is the idea that there can be a value that stands above the individual contexts of human experience. Such a value would present itself as a metanarrative and, as Jean-François Lyotard has explained, postmodernism is characterized fundamentally by its "incredulity toward meta-narratives." Nonetheless, I can't see how postmodern critics can do otherwise than accept the value of preserving the nonhuman world. The nonhuman is the extreme "other"; it stands in contradistinction to humans as a species. In understanding the constructed quality of human experience and the dangers of reification, postmodernism inherently advances an ethic of respecting the "other." At the very least, respect must involve ensuring that the "other" actually continues to exist. In our day and age, this requires us to take responsibility for protecting the actuality of the nonhuman. Instead, however, we are running roughshod over the earth's diversity of plants, animals, and ecosystems. Postmodern critics should find this particularly disturbing. If they don't, they deny their own intellectual insights and compromise their fundamental moral commitment.

Threats real and not constructed—rational risk assessment goes affKnudsen 1– PoliSci Professor at Sodertorn (Olav, Post-Copenhagen Security Studies, Security Dialogue 32:3)

Moreover, I have a problem with the underlying implication that it is unimportant whether states 'really' face dangers from other states or groups. In the Copenhagen school, threats are seen as coming mainly from the actors' own fears, or from what happens when the fears of

individuals turn into paranoid political action. In my view, this emphasis on the subjective is a misleading conception of threat , in that it discounts an independent existence for what- ever is perceived as a threat . Granted, political life is often marked by misperceptions , mistakes, pure imaginations, ghosts, or mirages, but such phenomena do not occur simultaneously to large numbers of politicians, and hardly most of the time . During the Cold War, threats - in the sense of plausible possibilities of danger - referred to 'real' phenomena, and they refer to 'real' phenomena now. The objects

referred to are often not the same, but that is a different matter. Threats have to be dealt with both ín terms of perceptions and in terms of the phenomena which

are perceived to be threatening. The point of Waever’s concept of security is not the potential existence of danger somewhere but the use of the word itself by political elites. In his 1997 PhD dissertation, he writes, ’One can View “security” as that which is in language theory called a speech act: it is not interesting as a sign referring to something more real - it is the utterance itself that is the act.’24 The

deliberate disregard of objective factors is even more explicitly stated in Buzan & WaeVer’s joint article of the same year.” As a consequence, the phenomenon of threat is reduced to a matter of pure domestic politics.” It seems to me that the security dilemma, as a central notion in security studies, then loses its foundation. Yet I see that Waever himself has no compunction about referring to

the security dilemma in a recent article." This discounting of the objective aspect of threats shifts security studies to insignificant concerns. What has long made 'threats' and ’threat perceptions’ important phenomena in the study of IR is the implication that urgent action may be required . Urgency, of course, is where Waever first began his argument in favor of an alternative security conception, because a convincing sense of urgency has been the chief culprit behind the abuse of 'security' and the consequent ’politics of panic', as Waever aptly calls it.” Now, here - in the case of urgency - another baby is

thrown out with the Waeverian bathwater. When real situations of urgency arise, those situations are challenges to democracy; they are actually at the core of the problematic arising with the process of making security policy in

parliamentary democracy. But in Waever’s world, threats are merely more or less persuasive, and the claim of urgency is just another argument. I hold that instead of 'abolishing' threatening phenomena ’out there’ by reconceptualizing them , as Waever does, we should continue pay ing attention to them, because situations with a credible claim to urgency will keep coming back and then we need to know more about how they work in the interrelations of groups and states (such as civil wars, for instance), not least to find adequate democratic procedures for dealing with them.

Last-resort options are better for patients’ needs and autonomies---CP increases societal obligation to careTimothy E. Quill & Greenlaw 8, MD, directs the Palliative Care Program at the University of Rochester’s Center for Ethics, Humanities, and Palliative Care, and Jane Greenlaw, RN, JD, directs the Program in Clinical Ethics at the University’s Center for Ethics, Humanities, and Palliative Care. "Physician Assisted Death," http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Publications/BriefingBook/Detail.as-px?id=2202, DOA: 10-19-2014, y2k

State-of-the-art palliative care remains the standard of care for any end-of-life suffering, and last resort options should only be considered when such treatments are ineffective. Good palliative care services are not available in all locations; efforts to increase education and proliferation of these services are

being made by medical groups, state initiatives, and patient advocates. When considering cases of intractable suffering in the face of excellent palliative care, a more politically and ethically acceptable alternative to legalizing physician-assisted death may be to expand other “last resort” options. Prescribing medication for aggressive management of pain and other symptoms, even in doses that might unintentionally hasten death, has wide ethical, legal, and professional acceptance. This practice can be justified on ethical grounds by the doctrine of double effect, which holds that even though it is wrong to take someone’s life intentionally, it can be permissible to risk foreseeably hastening someone’s death as long as one’s intention is to relieve suffering. Another last resort option with wide acceptance is for patients to be able to stop (or not start) any potentially life-sustaining therapy if it does not meet their goals, even if their purpose in refusing treatment is to escape suffering through an earlier death. The possibility for patients to stop eating and drinking voluntarily to escape intolerable suffering is accepted by many hospices and has considerable ethical and legal support. The ethical justification for these options is that they preserve patients’ right to bodily integrity—to say what happens to their own bodies. A last resort response to some of the more complex and difficult cases is for physicians to sedate a patient to the point of unconsciousness to enable the person to escape otherwise intractable physical suffering at the end of life. Support for this practice includes the 1997 Supreme Court decision in Washington v. Glucksberg and Quill v. Vacco, which recognized the right to good pain management, even if it requires doses that could hasten death. This practice invokes the rule of double effect and the right of bodily integrity. In July 2008 the American Medical Association stated that “it is the ethical obligation of a physician to offer palliative sedation to unconsciousness as an option for the relief of intractable symptoms” at the end of life when

“symptoms cannot be diminishesd through all other means of palliation.” Gi ving doctors and patients more open access to —and awareness of—last resort options could have several beneficial effects. One potential effect is increased opportunity to get second opinions from skilled

palliative care clinicians to be sure that other, less extreme avenues to address suffering have been considered . Another

benefit is reassurance to severely ill patients who fear end-of-life suffering and want to know that there are some avenues of escape that can be pursued openly and predictably. In addition, last resort options may lessen the desire and need for physician-assisted death by providing alternatives . Some patients in Oregon are choosing these alternatives even though

they have access to physician-assisted death because, in some circumstances, these approaches are better able to address their particular needs. Finally, the added alternatives increase both clinicians’ and society’s awareness of their obligation to address intolerable suffering when it is encountered.