Calls for assisted dying, euthanasia, to be legalised are on the rise. While many do not think it is morally wrong for a dying person to voluntarily end their life, concerns about the knock-on consequences of legalisation often stand in the way of changing the law. The slippery slope argument stands in the way of assisted dying. Such arguments are often a rhetorical device, that use suffering patients as a means to an end and not as ends in themselves, writes Emily Jackson.

Slippery slope arguments are generally employed in order to argue against doing something, on the grounds that even if doing the thing itself might be unproblematic, doing it is likely to have unintended and undesirable consequences. A slippery slope claim is not concerned with whether a particular activity is right or wrong, but with whether it is in practice impossible to confine ourselves to that activity only.