Um, let me think about this for a moment......
....Yeah, they do.
Posted on 09/28/2008 5:14:02 AM PDT by Kaslin
A waste. A burden. That is how influential medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock views people suffering from dementia. Lady Warnock, a prominent adviser to the British government, told the Church of Scotland's Life and Work magazine that people suffering from dementia should be allowed to kill themselves rather than continue to burden their families and Britain's National Health Service. Sadly, Warnock's comments are all too consistent with our modern utilitarian view of life.
Lady Warnock argues that people suffering from dementia are "wasting" their families' lives and the nation's resources. She believes that merely having dementia makes one's life not worth living. She maintains that people should be allowed to give advance notice to a third party that they wish to be killed when they reach a set point of mental deterioration. And she wants to expand this "advance directive" to include just about any situation where a person believes their life is no longer worth living. Her ultimate goal is to license people to "put others down." "Put them down"—like a sick dog. At least she's frank.
Warnock's vision is particularly disturbing because she has served as a prominent moral adviser to the British government on matters of life and bioethics, having chaired the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology in the 1980s. Conservative Member of Parliament Nadine Dorries criticized Lady Warnock's comments, stating, "Because of her previous experiences and well-known standing on contentious moral issues, Baroness Warnock automatically gives moral authority to what are entirely immoral view points."
At the heart of Lady Warnock's comments (and, indeed, the entire euthanasia movement) is an atomistic, subjective, utilitarian view of life. Once one becomes dissatisfied with the quality of their life or determines that they have outlived their usefulness, the door is open for them to end their life. They are the sole arbiters of whether their life is worth living. And if they are unable to "do the deed" themselves, they should be free to select a proxy to do it for them.
This "freedom" ignores the duty and responsibility people have to their families and communities. As John Donne famously said, "No man is an island." Perhaps the greatest modern lie is that every person has the right to do with themselves whatever they please. This lie fuels the selfish desires of every person: the elderly person who is too proud to let themselves "be a burden" to others, and those "others" who don't want to have to care for a person suffering from dementia or physical maladies.
The weak are the first to suffer when a society embraces a "quality of life" standard as the measure for human worth. The truth is that the strong and the rich in society are the true beneficiaries of euthanasia. Their responsibility to care for the sick and infirm is lifted when euthanasia is encouraged. One honest British commentator admits as much: "We in Britain, and across the industrial West, have an ageing population. The old are living longer, and the young are breeding later and less. This presents a simple resource-management issue... We are heading for a situation where we're deciding between care for the elderly and education of the young; and in which the quality of life of a family caring for a grandparent or great-grandparent in an advanced state of senility can be significantly impaired, perhaps over decades."
So there you have it: Grandma's life is worth less than your child's education. Not even a hint of the value of sacrifice or self denial is included in the equation. For us moderns, it's all about me.
The "quality of life" rhetoric of the euthanasia movement is the same rhetoric that the Nazis embraced when they embarked on a policy of killing and sterilizing the mentally or physically handicapped. Genocide of the "defective" became the means of removing the "waste" from society. This same mindset was present in the sterilization of the mentally handicapped in the U.S. in the early 1900s. These historical examples show the end result of "quality of life" thinking. Grading lives on a scale of "quality" implies that some lives are more or less worth living than others. It is a natural step from such thinking to advocate that those unfortunate people leading "lesser lives" ought to be put out of their misery.
The Bible exorts us to "look after orphans and widows in their distress" (James 1:27 NIV), but this is hardly the message of the euthanasia proponents who want to get rid of the elderly widow who is a drain on the system. We are also commanded to help those in need: "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has not pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." (1 John 3:17-18 NIV) People like Lady Warnock tell us that it is good for society to be rid of the burden of the suffering, the handicapped, the elderly, and anyone who does not have a "good enough" life. Such a view is contrary to the truly compassionate Judeo-Christian principles which laid the foundation for our culture.
And the "modern utilitarian view of life" is a direct outcome of putting health care under the aegis of government and taxes.
When the only way you can cut taxes going to a wasteful bureaucracy is by killing people or allowing them die, then people will be killed or allowed to die.
Um, let me think about this for a moment......
....Yeah, they do.
Nothing better that visions of ‘Logan’s Run’ for breakfast.
So the demented have a duty to die. Maybe it would be easier to do away with those over 50. They have a much higher rate of disease. Well, how about 40? Very few breeders, lots of aches and pains. Hey, how about 30....?
(btw. I’m nearly 48.)
She’s not heavy (or a burden) - she’s my mother.
That'd pretty much empty out Congress.
She needs to have tea with former Colorado Gov, “Duty to Die,”
Dick Lamm.
No one on the planet has peddled more death (he passed the nation’s first
abortion law.)
Joined by George Soros, who put in place all the laws to allow starvation/dehydration of the gravely ill and disabled, and you’d
have a truly satanic trifecta - tete a tete.
Do any Freepers truly hope or wish that their lives end before they succumb to dementia? And if there was a way,consistent with each person's conscience, to at list tip the scales to ensure that it happens, would anyone take that way?
As an example: to take up base jumping, where each jumper packs their own chute, and where there is no time for a reserve chute to open - if done on a regular basis, a deterioration of memory would catch up very quickly.
Again, just curious.
Very good question, especially for those of us who care for Dearly Demented Ones. I'll get back to ya in (hopefully) 20 years or so..unless I forget!
Yes, when we're all just cogs in "the system" instead of individuals in relationship with other individuals, it's very easy to declare whole groups "expendable."
When the only way you can cut taxes going to a wasteful bureaucracy is by killing people or allowing them die, then people will be killed or allowed to die.
They won't cut taxes. The System is about perpetuating and expanding itself; the purported "beneficiaries" are just the excuse. For example, do you see taxes/expenditures being cut in school districts with falling enrollment? Nope - they just want more revenue to keep the district's employees on the rolls.
I was shocked when so many of the men on the President’s Bioethics Council said that they did not want to be a burden to their families.
However, my mother’s long illness and dependency taught me that I am a better person than I thought. I have more reserves than I ever thought. And it was confirmed that my Daddy is a very good man for taking care of her demands as well as needs 24 hours a day for those last few months.
In a way, we owe it to our family to let them take care of us. It’s a lesson we can teach.
(Besides, isn’t employment for the caretakers important to Warnock?)
For years I saw no reason to quit smoking since there is Alzheimer's on both sides of my family. I've seen cancer and Alzheimer's both, up close and personal, and I assure you that cancer is BETTER. I don't know if you'd count that?
I did quit smoking last year, when my husband developed cardiac problems. He hasn't quit yet himself, but I read that spouses of non-smokers tend to become non-smokers as well within a few years, so there's hope.
Society will be measured by the manner in which it treats the weakest of its citizens. And this definitely includes those with dementia.
I think she was making the point that a person could sign an agreement requesting life not be continued after certain set of deterioration is met.
My father-in-law developed dementia in his early 80’s. My husband and I spent three years visiting him in a lockdown unit for dementia sufferers in a nursing home. All I know is that he would have hated what he became. We saw several people in that unit slowly descend to a state in which they ended up bedridden, sleeping most of the day and not interested in anyone or anything. My father-in-law’s case reminded me of someone whose brain was dead, but his body was on life support since he continued to receive blood pressure meds, heart medications, etc.
Maybe someone would not have to sign an agreement authorizing euthansia when certain criteria are met, but I would certainly sign something that provided I receive no medication to prolong my life after a certain point.
After one of our depressing visits I asked my husband what I should do if he developed dementia. He told me to put him in a car, put a rock on the accelerator and send him over a cliff.
I am only relating our personal experience and I realize it probably will not be a popular view on this board.
Which, of course, begs the question: What’s keeping THESE TWO alive?
When the "system" becomes more important that the people the system serves, then its the system that needs to be allowed to dissolve and be replaced by a new system.
For those that have relatives that are suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, please consider helping by joining the FReeper Folding@home team.
About 200 FReepers run F@H consistently, and the work has already contributed to over 55 published and peer reviewed papers helping to advance basic research in Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, Huntington's Disease and many others.
We would love your participation in memory of a loved one, in hope for one currently passing through its dark tunnels or in anticipation that each of us could be susceptible to its ravages.
“UF COURSE ZE DO. YOU MEAN ZERE IS STILL SOME QVESTION ABOUT ZIS?”
Yes, that is who I ment as prime examples. Otherwise, I disagree with the notion. However if there is a list being made up of people to go to make society better, I have my own personal one and you woulnd’t want to be a lefty.
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