June 15, 2015

The slippery slope

Those who are opposed to rational people having the ability to make their own choices about how their life ends are fond of using the phrase ‘the slippery slope’ and also of quoting erroneous statistics from The Netherlands.

Steven Poole in The Guardian wrote a nice article on the origins of the phrase and why its use is problematic.

“The invocation of a slippery slope is almost always anti-rational fear mongering,” he writes. “The phrase acts as a little weapon of ready-made false reasoning that the wielder supposes to function as a knockout argument.”

I am not astounded by the simple lies perpetuated by the plethora of websites dedicated to this anti-rational fear mongering. People who feel that they are engaged in a kind of war on what they see as immorality will frequently use whatever methods they see fit to try and gain the advantage, and quoting erroneous or made up numbers without giving sources or references is the least of them. There’s not much one can say in response to that other than ‘show me the evidence’, but what about interpretations of figures that are correct?

For example the number of people successfully requesting medical help to end their lives in the Netherlands has doubled between 2008 (2331 people) and 2013 (4829 people). These are official figures from the Regionale Toetsingscommissies Euthanasie, the five regional government agencies charged with ensuring the appropriate implementation of the euthanasia law.

Whilst those of us on this side of the argument might be pleased with these figures, since far fewer people suffered needlessly in 2013 than in 2008, those who are opposed to a change in the law are horrified. They see it as incontrovertible evidence of the so-called ‘slippery slope’. But clearly it is inevitable if something becomes legal, that more people are likely to avail themselves of that legal thing over time – and to report it to the appropriate government agency. What would be more interesting is to correlate the figures with the numbers of people forced to ending their lives in non dignified non peaceful ways. Unfortunately the government agency is not charged with reporting on this but it would not be surprising if there was a significant corresponding reduction in those figures.

Dr.Johannes Klabbers

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