Legal assisted suicide creates 'slippery slope' to doctors killing without consent, expert claims

Legalising assisted suicide creates a “slippery slope” that leads to doctors killing patients without their consent, according to an expert.
By Martin Beckford
01 Jul 2010

Prof David Jones said that if society agrees that it is in some people’s interests for them to end their own lives, it is difficult to resist the logical conclusion that others should be helped to die even if they have not made such a request.

He claimed this situation already exists in the Netherlands, where voluntary euthanasia is legal but where about 500 patients are also killed a year by their doctors without requesting to die.

Prof Jones, director of the centre for bioethics at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, said: “My view is that it will lead from people who have asked to die, to people who cannot ask.” the rest