exactly what is the slipery slope charge against euthanasia? is that charge logically and ethically legititmat

Question

basically slippery slope is considered to be when you begin summtin on a irregular basis, and after a while this becomes a habit because u ahve fallen down the slippery slope..

Answer 1

No. 'Slippery slope' is when you start a new activity for a limited group or number of reasons, and keep expanding the groups or reasons to which the activity applies.

For example, you could allow euthanasia for those deemed medically incurable who are in excruciating pain . . . then expand it to all who are medically incurable, . . . then to all who are seriously ill and have no health insurance (and therefore are 'incurable') and so on.

Once you allow suicide or killing of people for any reason, it becomes difficult to control the reasons or people involved.

Answer 2

The slippery slope is alive and well in all areas of public policy.

In this context, people are afraid that legalizing euthanasia for a certain category of people, say the hopeless sufferer in end- stage Huntington's disease, would lead to euthanizing those in a PVS. Then to burn sufferers screaming in pain, "I want to die." Then to people that are going to die anyway - just to harvest useful organs.

This has not proved to be the case in Norway (?) where legal euthanizia has been around for 10-15 years. There are strict rules and accountability for those involved. Constant reviews are conducted. This seems to have quieted critics using the 'slippery slope' argument.

Answer 3

Right - the slippery slope means watch it, cause you'll get pulled into doing it more than you meant to. Peope are afraid that if we allow euthanasia that TODAY it will only be used to let people die who WANT to die and SHOULD be allowed to die, (terrible pain and they're going to die anyway with no hope of cure), but the fear is that if we allow that, then one day we'll be killing people who are unconscious because "they would want it that way", and then even killing crazy people who say they don't want to die because "we know better what they need" and so on until we just kill people!

That's the fear.

Myself, I think we could limit it to allowing people to request pills to die themselves if it was all witnessed and no monkey business or they had a living will clearly saying they would want to die if in a vegetative state, again all witnessed and on the up and up.

Answer 4

I once read, on the editorial page of a newspaper, a doctor's opinion that babies are still fetuses the first year of their lives--something about baby elephants can stand up immediately, while human babies take a year. If you were to carry that thought to a logical conclusion, it'd be OK to kill infants under a year old--just a delayed abortion.

Answer 5

The poster above explained it pretty well. Since this is for homework, remember to slow down a little bit when you answer it and check your spelling. My teachers always marked off if we had a good answer but didn't spell correctly. Good luck!