A couple of days ago I had a horrid case of gastro with the works – both ends plus a fever. Punctuated only by regular visits to the toilet, I spent the day laying on the bed and staring at the ceiling fan. I got to thinking about voluntary euthanasia and in particular one of the political arguments used against it, namely the “slippery slope”.
Even though it was just a bog standard stomach bug from a dirty Indian saucepan, thinking about euthanasia was natural in my circumstances. For two days I was unable to eat, unable to participate in any of the activities I had planned, and unable to do anything pleasant to kill time. Using the slippery slope argument I was just a few slips of the slope away from being in a permanent and terminal state of extreme pain and discomfort, drifting in and out of consciousness thanks to the strong medication I needed to cope with the pain, not a single shred of dignity intact, and condemned to living like this for the rest of my limited and pointless days. It was simply terrible, I tell you, and temporarily reinforced my belief that were I ever in a situation like that I would want access to a legal voluntary euthanasia option.
But then I thought about the slippery slope, and I was reminded of why we should never make anything legal that might benefit some people if an adulterated and more evil version of that thing is possible. Voluntary euthanasia, if legal, might bring to an end the suffering of people in the most horrible of circumstances at their request, but it’s possible to think of a future version of a voluntary euthanasia law that made it, perhaps, involuntary, or even that legal voluntary euthanasia encouraged involuntary euthanasia. These outcomes are clearly undesirable so good must be sacrificed to prevent evil.
It’s just like how they started limited overs cricket and from there it was a slippery slope to Twenty20. Or how the Internet was invented and down the slope we slipped to Twitter. The world has suffered, and will continue to suffer, thanks to these short-sighted initial acts.
However, wrapping myself in a blanket to ward of a feverish chill, and grappling with these heavy issues, I was struck by a sudden thought that the whole slippery slope thing is the biggest pile of intellectually-lazy shit ever to be shat out into reasoned debate. Maybe it was the gastro talking, but I couldn’t see why any rational human should ever have to listen to the words “slippery slope” again.
So, with a few solid meals now in my gut, and my thinking being a lot less sloppy, I see no need for any more talk about slippery slopes or other out-of-your-arse arguments. We’re all adults here.