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diggWelcome to Baroness Warnock’s perfect world of total pleasure
The movement to remove all suffering from life takes another step forward, calling for people with dementia to die for the good of all.
The
1970s were famously described by Doonesbury as a kidney stone of a
decade. It certainly had more than its share of dystopian movies
featuring ridiculous plots, atrocious haircuts and worse acting. Why
would we want to take our ethical inspiration from them?
Yet this is effectively what Britain's best-known bioethicist, 84-year-old Baroness Mary Warnock, proposed last month.
Cast your mind back to such classics as Soylent Green (1973) and Logan's Run (1976). Both reflect the 1970s obsession with overpopulation and resource depletion. In the first one, people were encouraged to "go home" via gentle, soothing voluntary euthanasia. In the second they were obliged to "renew" themselves at the predetermined age of 30. If they escaped, they were hunted down and terminated by Sandmen like Logan, not exactly warm and fuzzy types. (For instance Logan's entire seduction repertoire seems to consist of: "You're beautiful. Let's have sex." What girl wouldn't swoon?)
In the end, both films warn against a future in which humans who have become too old or bothersome are required to commit suicide in order to, in Ebenezer Scrooge's immortal phrase, "decrease the surplus population". Whether by slow poison amid images of nature and classical music in Soylent Green or by lurid vapourization in an elaborate public ceremony in Logan's Run, it's all perfectly ghastly. And increasingly believable.
In fact, after reading Baroness Warnock's latest contribution to the euthanasia debate, it seems that Logan's Run must have been one of her favourite films. She told a Church of Scotland magazine that "If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives -– your family's lives –- and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service."
She didn't mean it in a good way.
Indeed, she continued, not only should you have the right to commit suicide, but you may even have a duty to do so: "I'm absolutely, fully in agreement with the argument that if pain is insufferable, then someone should be given help to die," she said, "but I feel there's a wider argument that if somebody absolutely, desperately wants to die because they're a burden to their family, or the state, then I think they too should be allowed to die. Actually I've just written an article called 'A Duty to Die?' for a Norwegian periodical. I wrote it really suggesting that there's nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so for the sake of others as well as yourself."
It makes a certain gruesome sense. If you live hedonistically in what the tagline for Logan's Run calls "a perfect world of total pleasure", you can't very well imagine sharing it with folks who are old, sick, drooling or sexually unattractive. In Logan's society, nobody is fat, ugly, or over 30. Science delivers a life of ease and pleasure, one orderly to the point of sterility, with all aspects of reproduction taken care of by a master computer running elaborate laboratories. At one point, asked by a Sandman friend whether he knows the "seed mother" of the newborn son he views behind nursery glass, Logan replies: "Of course not! I'm curious, not sick!" Thus fetching young things in revealing outfits (Farrah Fawcett plays an important role here) are free to enjoy sex in a Mall of America environment uncomplicated by such pesky things as commitment or pregnancy.
It's extremely disturbing, and not just because I'm looking at 30 in the rear-view mirror. At the moment, I can afford to be glib. Thirty is still close, though behind me; I am healthy, and I usually manage to muddle through my days without outside assistance. I have nothing to fear from Baroness Warnock, who'd rather that the decrepit elderly off themselves in a selfless act of duty towards their carers and the publicly-funded health care system.
But when she concluded by suggesting the desirability of "licensing people to put others down", I had a hideous vision of myself clad in a crepe paper microskirt fleeing from an assassin in a desperate attempt to extend my life beyond 30. Where else can such thinking end?
Baroness Warnock has written a scary script for Britain's National Health Service, one which assumes that life is not worth living past the age of constant partying. But we can't all look like Farrah Fawcett (not a bad thing, either). Life is more than cute 20-somethings looking clueless in tacky tight clothes. So why is this eminent ethicist insisting on imitating bad 1970s sci-fi movies?
Brigitte Pellerin is a writer and broadcaster based in Ottawa.
Baroness. It’s the usual story of the elite looking for ways to rid themselves of the odious riff-raff - “Odi profanum vulgus et arceo”. Her utter lack of any understanding of human dignity disqualifies her opinion from any serious consideration. She is in truth a savage woman from realms outside the pale of human civilisation.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, that to be hated, needs but to be seen,
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity then embrace.
Alexander Pope (the poet, not the 6th Bishop of Rome of that name - the one with the infamous reputation)
First we will start encouraging older folk to kill themselves, as an honourable duty to the rest of us who are alive, then we will start saying that if they cannot consent, considering that they are dutiful citizens, they would want to be killed and so we will do it for them. Duty will become the last refuge of a multitude of scoundrels.
(Very appropriate authenticity script below!)
Why does the author of this article call the Baroness ‘an eminent ethicist’? What is the evidence for this - or is she being ironic?
The stoicism of the British population during WWII has nothing to do with this deadly Gospel of despair preached by Warnock, as an earlier post points out.
If we cease to care for the elderly, the weak and the vulnerable, we cease to be caring people. Selfishness gradually kills off selflessness. I am surprised that such an ‘eminent’ philosopher has not considered the ominous consequences of this.
Africa, as another post indicates, has much to teach the so-called advanced nations about true community care.
Another cautionary film is “Children of Men”. What if there were no more children at all?
What the good Baroness seems to misunderstand is that cultures are not static. A culture that systematically exterminates its young and elderly will - by simple population stagnation - disappear and be replaced by a more vibrantly growing culture. One can only hope that the new culture is not violently idealistically opposed to the one it supplants… or the transition may be bloody and swift rather than lingering (but just as certain)… Tempting to consider the end of the Roman Empire as it became more and more hedonistic - surely it would have seemed to be an eternal culture at the time?
Baroness Warnock’s ideas - as some commenters seem to have realised - is simply another dimension of the Culture of Death that we all live under: abortion, euthanasia, eugenics, and others - the valuing of life only in purely-this-worldly, or materialist, terms - the idea that life is only “good” when measured against “fulfillment” or the so-called “quality” of life (a bogus, designed-to-fool-you fabrication if ever there was one). Life is valuable in itself, simply because God created it, and not for any other reason whatever. A down-and-out in the gutter, a physically and mentally disabled “cabbage”,is as valuable as any person who is rich, beautiful, “successful” (?), or possessed of skills and abilities.
I KNOW this from reflecting on my own life: stupidity is wide spread throughout the world . . . Charles+
Are we allowed to point out that many--not all, but many--traditional people in American once deemed the American Indians fit only to be removed? I’m afraid that if we’re going to condemn such mentalities, we have to condemn them consistently.
Baroness Warnock is for quite some time the Irish Government’s bio-ethicist of choice. Her posh erudite sounding Angloacademic accent is her great source of authority in poor old Ireland’s post-colonial culture of political correctness. That the people of Ireland repeatedly reject her inhuman messages is regarded by our governing elites as proof positive of her superior form of correctness. That the plain people let the governing elites down can be embarassing, but it’s so much worse when they let them down before the Baroness - it’s disgraceful!
John K. said: “The point Pellerin effectively makes, to those who read with even minimal attention, is that the loopy and evil Baroness seems to have taken the films as a twisted source of inspiration. She, not Pellerin, missed the point of the films.”
John, I’ve read the article again and Pellerin seems to be calling the movies in question both good and bad. She describes them as coming from a terrible decade, then she describes them as being classic, and then as bad science fiction. Perhaps I was confused by her confusion.
Here in the USA, we had a state governor who back in the 1980s famously said that terminally ill people in general had a “duty to die,” and “get out of the way.” I recall widespread condemnation of his remarks at the time, but I wonder how Americans might react today.
It seems apparent the Baroness Warnock lack life experience as well as a normal conscience in order to advocate suicide, or in the case of those souls unable to think clearly for themselves, murder. The Nazi Party of WWII also had such a distorted viewpoint, as well as others who have no regard or consideration for life, a gift with a purpose. Who am I, or any other human, to say any life is subject to elimination? Has humanity sunk so low we’ve passed ever deeper into a black abyss beyond the horrid abortion “issue?” After many years as a licensed registered nurse I have perhaps encountered many who were little more than vegetative, yet life pulsed through them. Why? Where did that life originate? Is it a gift or is it a bit of trash to be tossed aside?
I maintain the very most afflicted are as precious to this world as the very most able. Regardless of physical/mental condition, I have yet to see a wish from such so-called vegetative individuals to cease their physical life, and I would beg the question “Why is this?” What force holds life so dear even in the face of such overwhelming difficulties? Do these “non-productive” individuals have a reason to exist with life? I say “Most definitely YES” to such ponderings and would ask dissenters to ask themselves about that definite sense of emptiness experienced when that soul leaves that human physical body. Only then may one say that soul has completed his/her earthly mission. For those who may label my thoughts “religious” I would have everyone know I turn my back on all churches and religious affiliations.
If there can be a duty to die for one group (the sick and elderly) maybe it should be extended to other groups? For example, people sentenced to life imprisonment might prefer to die rather than be a burden on society? Not all of them might see it that way, but are they the best judges of their ‘quality of life’? Maybe we should make the decision for them? And so we re-introduce (or extend) capital punishment. And we could provide it for other crimes, or even for people whose opinions (the State feels) are dangerous to society. Of course, some people think that reducing the population can be a good thing in itself (I was at a debate last night in which it was suggested that an abortion in the first world released resources for three people to live in the third world).
The irony is that the Baroness is a firm believer that there is no such thing as a slippery slope - when we see her careering down one with increasing speed.
Quote Page: Brigitte Pellerin seems to have missed the point that movies like Logan’s Run were not advocacy, they were cautionary tales.
Quote article: In the end, both films *warn against a future* in which humans who have become too old or bothersome are required to commit suicide in order to, in Ebenezer Scrooge’s immortal phrase, “decrease the surplus population”. (*emphasis* added)
The point Pellerin effectively makes, to those who read with even minimal attention, is that the loopy and evil Baroness seems to have taken the films as a twisted source of inspiration. She, not Pellerin, missed the point of the films.
I think I see where this is going. With the decline of birth rate in some 1st world countries, in the future (or maybe it is happening now) there are fewer people supporting the chronologically advanced - who were productive citizens. This leads to lesser funds supporting the seniors.
Kill demented people? They have the right to live! If they consider it a waste of money or resources to support them, then they I think it is logical to have more people to work. Population control nor assisted suicide is not the answer!
When it comes to the Baroness’s statements on euthanasia, it’s important to note that she has a very British mindset, one that is particular to her generation. The attitude is: ‘Don’t be a bother to anyone’, ‘Don’t be too much trouble - it’s selfish’. But she perverts this stoic mentality which has its place in other circumstances.
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