The real slippery slope

Re: “Why euthanasia pioneers are changing their minds,” Licia Corbella, Opinion, July 19, and “I was wrong: euthanasia has a slippery slope,” Theo Boer, Opinion, July 18.

Some statements Theo Boer made, which Licia Corbella parroted, demand challenging.

Boer states: “Euthanasia is on the way to becoming a default mode of dying for cancer patients.”

He doesn’t provide percentages of how many people choose euthanasia over letting the disease take its course, so I don’t know how we can assess if he is fearmongering or not.

Besides, what would be wrong with the statement if it were true? Is he suggesting that the alternative to euthanasia is a better way of dying? What if the people requesting it do not agree with his better way? Why does he, or anyone else, get to decide which way is preferable for you or me?

While discussing the suffering of the aged, lonely or bereaved, he avers that “some of these patients could have lived for years or decades.”

Perhaps those patients did not want to live for years or decades in that state. He is presumptuous in deciding for people how long and in what state they wish to live.

He says “pressure on doctors to conform to patients’ ... wishes can be intense.” I certainly hope so. Since when should doctors’ wishes trump patients’ wishes? That is a slippery slope I am worried about — making doctors the arbiters of who gets to die and when.

Alan Maslen, Calgary