A slippery slope describes how events progress from an initially innocent step to a cascade of subsequent misfortunes that are increasingly inevitable, difficult to stop, and more harmful than the last. In the attempt to improve what is already just fine, patients can unknowingly find themselves on this slope. This book shows them how to avoid it.

Dr. Steven Kussin, physician and a pioneer in the Shared Decision movement, takes readers through the steps of how to avoid the many pitfalls of unnecessary and sometimes even dangerous medical care. The American healthcare system is subsidized by its services to healthy people. The goal as it is for any business is to encourage people to become consumers by creating an emotionally-fueled demand for things that are suddenly and urgently needed. It’s hard to make healthy people well; it’s easy to make them sick. Under the goal to make you even healthier, the medical industry identifies and encourages investigations and preventive technologies for ‘problems’ unlikely to occur, unlikely to harm, unlikely to benefit from testing, and, once diagnosed, unlikely to benefit from treatment. Profitable services go on indefinitely for those who are young and well. For the health care industry being in good health is not just the best way to live; good health is also the slowest way to die. Many people find themselves on what the author calls the Slippery Slope, experiencing a cascade of escalating misfortunes produced by more tests with incrementally greater risk, expense, and fewer benefits. Many people, who, in the attempt to improve what is already just fine, unquestioningly pay an immediate and visible price for what are distant, invisible, and uncertain benefits. The central starting point for initiating a Slippery Slope adventure can be the first blood test, the first screening test, the first x-ray, the first pill, or the first diagnosis that’s accepted by unwitting and trusting consumers. The bottom of the Slippery Slope is occupied by those previously well but who now are damaged, and by others who suffered needless unscheduled deaths. America’s famed consumer skepticism when judging retail products is curiously and dangerously absent in their interactions within the healthcare system. Here, Steven Kussin offers strategies that give readers knowledge and power by offering unique perspectives, information, and resources. He confronts the mighty forces arrayed against health care consumers and helps readers learn to identify them themselves. The power of money, the authority of science, the stature of physicians, the lure of elective health ‘improvements’, the promise of technology, and the pitch perfect, perfect pitches of televised ads all conspire to push people in directions that are often at odds with their stated priorities and interests. This book is dedicated to one lesson: The view from atop the Slope, before making a health care decision, is better than the view from the bottom, after having made a bad one. For more information visit https://theslipperyslopebook.com/

This open access book has been written by ten Belgian health care professionals, nurses, university professors and doctors specializing in palliative care and ethicists who, together, raise questions concerning the practice of euthanasia. They share their experiences and reflections born out of their confrontation with requests for euthanasia and end-of-life support in a country where euthanasia has been decriminalized since 2002 and is now becoming a trivial topic.Far from evoking any militancy, these stories of life and death present the other side of a reality needs to be evaluated more rigorously.Featuring multidisciplinary perspectives, this though-provoking and original book is intended not only for caregivers but also for anyone who questions the meaning of death and suffering, as well as the impact of a law passed in 2002. Presenting real-world cases and experiences, it highlights the complexity of situations and the consequences of the euthanasia law.This book appeals to palliative care providers, hematologists, oncologists, psychiatrists, nurses and health professionals as well as researchers, academics, policy-makers, and social scientists working in health care. It is also a unique resource for those in countries where the decriminalization of euthanasia is being considered. Sometimes shocking, it focuses on facts and lived experiences to challenge readers and offer insights into euthanasia in Belgium.

Exposing the false premise of the euthanasia movement to make a compelling case against assisted suicide, "Forced Exit" reveals the horrors of the Netherlands, where 8.5 percent of all deaths are attributed to assisted suicide and where Dutch doctors have rapidly moved from euthanizing the terminally ill to killing infants with birth defects.

Within the span of a single year, Spalding Gray marries and divorces one woman, moves in with another who bears him a son, and learns to ski.

Whether the law should permit voluntary euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide is one of the most vital questions facing all modern societies. Internationally, the main obstacle to legalisation has proved to be the objection that, even if they were morally acceptable in certain 'hard cases', voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide could not be effectively controlled; society would slide down a 'slippery slope' to the killing of patients who did not make a free and informed request, or for whom palliative care would have offered an alternative. How cogent is this objection? This book provides the general reader (who need have no expertise in philosophy, law or medicine) with a lucid introduction to this central question in the debate, not least by reviewing the Dutch euthanasia experience. It will interest all in any country whether currently for or against legalisation, who wish to ensure that their opinions are better informed.

First Published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this book, a global panel of experts considers the international implications of legalised euthanasia based on experiences from Belgium.

This textbook examines the ways in which arguments may be used and abused in medicine and health. The central claim is that a group of arguments known as the informal fallacies – including slippery slope arguments, fear appeal, and the argument from ignorance – undertake considerable work in medical and health contexts, and that they can in fact be rationally warranted ways of understanding complex topics, contrary to the views of many earlier philosophers and logicians. Modern medicine and healthcare require lay people to engage with increasingly complex decisions in areas such as immunization, lifestyle and dietary choices, and health screening. Many of the so-called fallacies of reasoning can also be viewed as cognitive heuristics or short-cuts which help individuals make decisions in these contexts. Using features such as learning objectives, case studies and end-of-unit questions, this textbook examines topical issues and debates in all areas of medicine and health, including antibiotic use and resistance, genetic engineering, euthanasia, addiction to prescription opioids, and the legalization of cannabis. It will be useful to students of critical thinking, reasoning, logic, argumentation, rhetoric, communication, health humanities, philosophy and linguistics.