Dr. Death is free

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha

I cannot see how killing yourself, or bringing in a 3rd party to assist you in killing yourself, is wrong. As long as there are checks to ensure the individual is lucid, I also don't buy the slippery slope argument.

Can you explain why you don't buy the slippery slope argument?

There seems to be a movement going around where people just dismiss the slippery slope argument, but there has to be some reasoning behind it? I'd like to believe it because I'd like to think people should be able to end their lives if they're terminally ill, but I can't get by the slippery slope of allowing euthinasia.

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

Can you explain why you don't buy the slippery slope argument?

There seems to be a movement going around where people just dismiss the slippery slope argument, but there has to be some reasoning behind it? I'd like to believe it because I'd like to think people should be able to end their lives if they're terminally ill, but I can't get by the slippery slope of allowing euthinasia.

I think it's best that I know precisely what slippery slope argument you believe in before I start rebutting it. I can guess what you'll say, but I guess I prefer to hear it "straight from the horses mouth."

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha

I think it's best that I know precisely what slippery slope argument you believe in before I start rebutting it. I can guess what you'll say, but I guess I prefer to hear it "straight from the horses mouth."

My thing is if Dr. Jack is allowed to help people committ suicide, won't there invariably be more doctors entering into this service? After all, this is a market-based economy, if there is money to be made by assisting the terminally ill to end their lives, docs are going to get involved. The economics are going to provide an incentive for these docs to perform more assisted suicides.

And working where I work (hospital financial administration) I can tell you that hospitals would have a financial incentive to see the terminally ill moved out of the beds. One of the biggest financial drains a hospital faces are the patients who just sit and sit and sit in beds without getting better. A hospital can save over $100,000 by getting a patient out of a bed after a one-week stay compared to a four or five-week stay.

Those two economic factors set up a perfect set of conditions for the greedy and ethically questionable docs and hospitals to push for assisted suicide when it may not be medically necessary/desirable. That article 70-Chip posted about suicide clinics in Europe highlights the troubles you face in trying to determine whether pain and suffering is related to a terminal illness, or simply a temporary result of depression and other mental illnesses. I can easily see docs and hospitals relying on the patient's reported pain and suffering, claiming that assisted suicide is ethical in this situation, all the while hiding that the true cause of the pain is the depression that sets in from having a dangerous illness.

The economic factors here will cause the medical community to push the envelope on this issue. It would require so much governmental oversight to ensure ethics were upheld that the cost likely would not be worth it. In this circumstance, it seems the financial conditions are in place to actually push people further down the slippery slope.