Are Death with Dignity laws a “slippery slope” toward euthanasia?
This is a common and completely false claim. The simple fact is that Oregon and Washington residents wouldn’t have voted for a loosely written, open-ended law. The law’s multiple safeguards specifically require and guarantee direct patient involvement. In direct contrast, euthanasia is a loose, ambiguous concept that often implies a person’s involuntary death. Euthanasia is illegal in the United States and has no relation to the two carefully written and regulated Death with Dignity laws, and there have been no efforts to expand it beyond its strict guidelines.
