One striking thing about modern Western societies is how quickly bioethical practices that would once have been shocking quickly become unremarkable. It happened with abortion, it happened with embryo selection, and now it is happening with euthanasia. Last week it emerged that during 2016 and 2017 three children in Belgium were given euthanasia, and the media reaction was one giant shrug. As far as I am aware it has barely been reported outside Christian and pro-life circles.
Pro-lifers who warn against weakening the legal protection offered to all human life are often accused of believing in the supposed “slippery slope fallacy”. But the Belgian experience, over the 16 years since euthanasia was introduced, suggests that logical slippery slopes do exist.
