Bioethics, healthcare policy, and related issues.
Online Beeb has an interesting article on the debate over euthanasia in the UK. They quote Len Doyal as coming out in favor of active euthanasia, which their headline bills as some sort of shocker (readers of medical ethics literature will know this is not a new or even especially rare position to take – it has just been backburnered in the public debate on end-of-life care). The real point of interest to me was the breadth of opinion now being openly bandied about. Another interesting point is my recognition that some parts of that range of opinion are new, at least on the public stage, and some people or organizations that uphold what were once radical positions have been forced into opposing others who are now going further than those so-called radicals feel comfortable with.
All of which is by way of saying that there may be something to this slippery-slope business after all.
