In an era in which so many wonder what can this or that particular person ultimately do for them, to which they therefore believe that this then determines a given person's worth, this ultimately translates into the belief that people only have value from the standpoint of their capacity to do something of value for someone else. In other words, if you are so old and debilitated so that you apparently cannot do anything constructive, than your life has no purpose. If you are severely handicap, so that it would appear that for your entire life, you will need constant aid, than your life is not worth helping. If you become impregnated, the choice as to whether that child is born or aborted, should be the mother's choice alone, because it is her body, and thereby her choice, and therefore that particular child's life has no value.
The above seem to be the arguments of the present day as to the basic reasoning behind abortion, euthanasia, and the like, to which all of this comes down to the basic premise that if you are a burden or significant inconvenience upon society, that the family or the State should have the right to preclude or to terminate such a life. This type of mindset, in which certain members of society are considered to be of more value than others, flies in the face, that all are entitled equal protection under man's law, and that all are made in the image of God.
If, it is the principle of any country that members of its society are valued only by virtue of what they can provide to society at large, rather than seeing all of human life as of intrinsic value, made of the same substance by our Creator, with the attendant unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you have replaced this instead with the viewpoint that not all human life is equal, and once that has been decided and adjudicated, those that make those decisions, are affordeda privileged position in society, giving them the decisive voice as to who shall live and who shall die.
Perhaps a medical doctor can make a compelling case in regards to a particular person that their life has no hope, is painful, and pathetic, and in conclusion that such a life should be discharged from this material world. The decision to do that means inevitably that the future targets of who shall live and who shall die will migrate very quickly from the weakest and the least powerful, to the systematic killing of those that have no champions to their cause or are an inconvenience to the State. If, then, the force of law and the force of the State, work together to effect this change than it will be they, this privileged bureaucracy, that will become the gods of life or death.
In point of fact, once you permit government agents the power of life and death over its citizens, that they profess to serve, than the country no longer has life, liberty, or is it pursuing happiness, rather its citizens have effectively no rights, because if there is no true sanctity of human life than all other rights, no matter how flowerer the prose, are like clay in the hands of absolute tyranny.