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It is frequently stated that the Netherlands moved to a permissive regime with respect to assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia and then slid down the slope to involuntary euthanasia.(1) For example, Karl Gunning gave the following testimony before the Canadian Senate Committee on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide:
[t]he lesson we can pass on to the world is that when you start to admit that killing is a solution to one problem, you will have many more problems tomorrow for which killing may also be a solution. Once you take away the dike that protects us, and if you have only one hole in the dike--and we have some experience with dikes in Holland--there will be a big flood, the dike will break, and the land will be flooded. That is exactly what is happening now in Holland.
We talk about the slippery slope. Holland is no longer on the slippery slope; it has turned into Niagara Falls, which we will go down quickly.(2)
If Canada decriminalized assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia, it is argued, Canada too would slide to the objectionable bottom of the slippery slope.
In this paper, while I will conclude that the Dutch experience should give us some concern about a slippery slope, I will, more importantly, also conclude that it should not give us the level of concern suggested by some commentators. I will argue that it does not provide a basis on which to conclude that assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia should not be decriminalized in Canada. Rather, it provides a basis for proceeding with caution and developing a permissive regime that places barriers on the slope and contains mechanisms by which slippage down the slope can be detected (and, thereafter, rectified).
In my effort to accurately assess the force of the slippery slope argument grounded in the Dutch experience, I will first provide an overview of the legal status of euthanasia and assisted suicide. I will then address a number of the most common and/or egregious misinterpretations and misrepresentations found in the literature. I will then suggest a number of responses that might be made to the Netherlands-based slippery slope argument.
A. An Overview of the Legal Status of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide in the Netherlands
Euthanasia...