The Empirical Slippery Slope from Voluntary to Non-Voluntary Euthanasia

Author:

Lewis Penney

Abstract

Slippery slope arguments appear regularly whenever morally contested social change is proposed. Such arguments assume that all or some consequences which could possibly flow from permitting a particular practice are morally unacceptable.Typically, “slippery slope” arguments claim that endorsing some premise, doing some action or adopting some policy will lead to some definite outcome that is generally judged to be wrong or bad. The “slope” is “slippery” because there are claimed to be no plausible halting points between the initial commitment to a premise, action, or policy and the resultant bad outcome. The desire to avoid such projected future consequences provides adequate reasons for not taking the first step.Thus the legalization of abortion in limited circumstances is asserted to lead down the slippery slope towards abortion on demand and even infanticide; and the legalization of assisted suicide to lead inexorably to the acceptance of voluntary euthanasia and subsequently to the sanctioning of the practice of nonvoluntary euthanasia – even involuntary euthanasia of “undesirable” individuals.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Subject

Health Policy,General Medicine,Issues, ethics and legal aspects

Reference108 articles.

1. “Should Coercive Interrogation Be Legal?”;Posner;Michigan Law Review,2006

2. “Assisted Suicide under the European Convention on Human Rights: A Critique,”;Kuhse;European Human Rights Law Review,2003

3. 20. Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 734 (1997). See also, the concurring opinion of Souter J., id., at 785-6 (recognizing that the Dutch "evidence is contested")

4. Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793, 809 (1997). The Dutch experience was also mentioned briefly in the earlier decision of the Second Circuit in Quill v. Vacco, 80 F.3d 716, 730 (1996), citing New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, When Death is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context (1994): at 133-4. ("As to the interest in avoiding abuse similar to that occurring in the Netherlands, it seems clear that some physicians there practice nonvoluntary euthanasia, although it is not legal to do so.") The first decision in the Ninth Circuit in Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 49 F.3d 586, 593 (1995) identified a state interest in "preventing abuse similar to what has occurred in the Netherlands." See also, The Queen on the Application of Mrs. Dianne Pretty v. Director of Public Prosecutions [2002] 1 A.C. 800, [55] (H.L.), citing Keown, supra note 3, at 261-96.

5. 99. See Lewis, supra note 8, at 127–36.

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