Voluntary euthanasia is the same thing as suicide with a little help. Involuntary euthanasia is the same thing as murder. These two categories of "gentle death" should be opposed just as suicide and murder are opposed. The grounds used to justify voluntary euthanasia are often capable of supporting involuntary euthanasia. For example, proponents of voluntary euthanasia say that it will save medical resources, the financial resources of the families involved and relieve suffering. These justifications also hold true for compulsory euthanasia.

There are several objections to those justifications. The first and most obvious is that the role of medicine is to preserve life, not to prevent suffering. In fact, many life-preserving medical techniques are quite painful. Were we to decide that our system should be one of pain-prevention, then there is no longer a reason to pursue uncomfortable treatments that may yet save lives -- the underlying justification for such treatments (like chemotherapy or even a simple colonoscopy) is lost.

A second objection is that in establishing the legitimacy of voluntary euthanasia, we also establish an expectation that the elderly and infirm will choose that option. After all, euthanasia will be regarded as a positively moral action that preserves the dignity of the person, prevents the suffering of age or disease, prevents the prolonged suffering of the family, and ultimately saves money and medical resources. All these justifications for euthanasia leave the elderly and infirm that do want to prolong their lives with no way of saying so that is not regarded as selfish.

Finally, by categorizing voluntary euthanasia under "medical care" we give it the illusion that a doctor can help in the decision to die. The term "physician assisted suicide" reveals how necessary the medical caregiver is to the act. Proponents of voluntary euthanasia say that it is their own decision to make, but clearly that decision cannot be made alone. It isn't hard to imagine the scenario where an elderly patient asks her doctor of many years to help her die, that she misses her husband. (The asking in itself makes the act not just her own) The doctor refuses, saying that he is a life-preserver, not a bringer of death. (Here, too, the act could not be her own, he must help) Fine, she says, I will find a doctor who will kill me. And here we see the reality of the situation. She would not die but for the actions of another person. And a new market has opened, one in which death doctors are sought out not because of their skill at preserving life or even their skill in medically preventing suffering, but because they have been given legal authority to deal death. That authority to deal death has very little, in reality, with preventing suffering and a great deal to do with providing a legal method of opting out of life.