Britain is sleepwalking into euthanasia

Christian Today ^ | 6/4/09 | Dr Peter Saunders

[wagglebee]

Dr Peter Saunders is the Director of the Care Not Killing Alliance and General Secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship. He warns Britain is in danger of sleepwalking into euthanasia as a result of a high profile campaign by the pro-euthanasia lobby which has increased public anxiety about dying and created the false impression that there is a need for a change in the law.

After failing in the High Court and Court of Appeal, Debbie Purdy has brought her high profile House of Lords bid to seek immunity from prosecution for her husband, should he accompany her abroad for assisted suicide.

Over 100 Britons have now died at the Swiss assisted suicide facility Dignitas, though this represents a tiny proportion of Britons who have died in the last 10 years. We are told that a further 800 have registered with the organisation, including 34 who have expressed their intention to travel to Zurich to end their lives.

Meanwhile, Lord Falconer and Baroness Jay have signalled their intention to lay down an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill in order to decriminalise assisting suicide for Britons travelling abroad.

These moves are the latest steps in a long-running, well-funded and carefully orchestrated campaign by the pro-euthanasia lobby to change the law on assisted suicide.

The Coroners and Justice Bill is aimed at tightening up the Suicide Act 1961 to prevent the internet promotion of youth suicide. Ironically, Lord Falconer is attempting to hijack the bill for a completely different purpose – to allow terminally ill people to travel abroad for assisted suicide.

The clear intention of the pro-euthanasia lobby is to establish a beachhead for further assaults on the law in the next parliament.

The present law is there to protect vulnerable people and Parliament has firmly resisted three attempts in the last five years to change it. The current law acts as an effective deterrent by ensuring that all but the most determined individuals do not seek to push its boundaries.

But if the law were to change we would see a very different kind of case, where people who are depressed, disabled or elderly are placed under pressure, whether real or imagined, whether overt or subtle, to end their lives so as not to pose a financial or care burden to relatives or the state.

This pressure will be particularly acutely felt at a time of economic recession with cuts in health spending imminent.

If assisted suicide is decriminalised for terminally ill patients travelling abroad, it will have been established as a ‘therapeutic option’. Lobbyists will then seek to extend the selection criteria through bringing new cases through the courts and new bills through Parliament.

This is evident from the fact that almost all the high profile cases used by activists to change public opinion on this issue thus far involve people, like Debbie Purdy, who are not actually terminally ill.

If this amendment is passed, it will then be argued on grounds of equality, as it has in other parts of the world, that assisted suicide should be offered for chronically ill and disabled people who want it, that euthanasia should be offered for those who are unable to self-administer lethal drugs, and that non-voluntary euthanasia should be available for mentally incompetent people, including minors, whose lives are judged not to be worth living or who “would not want to have lived this way”.

What we are witnessing here is an incremental political strategy, and Parliament and the Public should not be lulled into a sense of security by this apparently modest beginning. By seeking acceptance for assisted suicide in principle Lord Falconer’s amendment is a recipe for the abuse and exploitation of vulnerable people. This bill is not the proper context for such a seismic shift in legal principle.

The current number of cases of people going to the Dignitas is actually very small – only 100 in ten years against 6 million deaths in Britain over the same period. But the pro-euthanasia lobby, aided and abetted by sections of the media, have fuelled public anxiety about the dying process by running a high-profile campaign in order to create the impression that there is a growing demand for assisted suicide when there is not.

Persistent requests for assisted suicide or euthanasia, when people are receiving good care, remain extremely rare, which is why we have always argued that we should be making a priority of making the best care much more widely accessible.

All British bodies of medical professionals, including the BMA and the Royal Medical Colleges, remain firmly opposed to a change in the law believing it to be both dangerous and unnecessary. If the pro-euthanasia lobby wish to change things they should seek to do so openly and honestly, rather than furthering their agenda by sneaking in assisted dying through the back door.

[wagglebee]

But if the law were to change we would see a very different kind of case, where people who are depressed, disabled or elderly are placed under pressure, whether real or imagined, whether overt or subtle, to end their lives so as not to pose a financial or care burden to relatives or the state.

This has happened EVERYWHERE euthanasia/assisted suicide is permitted.

[wagglebee]

Pro-Life Ping

[wagglebee]

Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee or DirtyHarryY2K to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]

[Jeff Head]

The culture of death moves relentlessly forward. It is a strong delusion which leads to more and more death...and ultimately more and more state control over who lives and who dies.

Abortion is the stepping stone to all of this and it lteads to exactly what these same supporters of this culture want ijn the United States.

56,000 were killed in Buchenwald...and the world justafiaby, and understandably condemns the holocaust and hunted down and executed the perpetrators.

By his own admission, Dr. Tiller, whom our own President supprted, butchered 60,000 and more, and yet a corrupt law, that has protected the practioners in this gruesome holocaust, protected the man from the true rule of law.

Anyone blind to the sick, evil irony of that have accepted a deparved set of circumstances and strong delusion.

I mourn Tiller's family at the loss of their father and grandfather. I doubt seriously that they knew the full and graphic nature of what he was involed in.

But I absolutely refuse to mourn the fact that he, Dr. Tiller, a bloody, gruesome killer of fully formed babies...who were alive, who could FEEL THE PAIN of being literally ripped asunder, will himself murder no more.

THE GRUESOME TRUTH OF THE ABORTION HOLOCAUST & THE DEATH OF DR. TILLER [Warning: A graphic photo of death & dismemberment]

“It is the grimmest of ironies that one of the most savage, barbaric acts of evil in history began in one of the most modernized societies of its time, where so many markers of human progress became tools of human depravity: science that can heal, used to kill; education that can enlighten, used to rationalize away basic moral impulses; the bureaucracy that sustains modern life, used as the machinery of mass death, a ruthless, chillingly efficient system where many were responsible for the killing, but few got actual blood on their hands.”–Barack Obama April 24, 2009, Holocaust Remebernce Day, Chicago Sun Times.

[nmh]

It's an abortion repeat.

The sheeple maybe waking up to how hideous that IS.

As U.S. greys ... there will be less “compassion” for our elderly and infirmed and with Obama created “scarce resources” for proper health care ... the narcissistic, greedy younger generation may believe it is “compassionate” to put people down like animals. We are nipping at the UK’s heels on this and other issues.

[wagglebee]

Abortion is the stepping stone to all of this and it leads to exactly what these same supporters of this culture want in the United States.

Exactly, the culture of death experienced a major setback when we defeated the Nazis. However, they soon realized that the left would be more than happy to embrace their agenda as long as it was done incrementally and done with "politically correct" terms.

But, in the end, today's culture of death is identical to the Nazis.

“This person suffering from hereditary defects

costs the people 60,000 Reichmarks during his lifetime.

People, that is your money. Read ‘New People’.”

[UCANSEE2]

Thanks for posting the article.

I agree. It’s not just Britain.

The Muslims have it down to a science(religion).
America is marching in with eyes wide shut.

The Japanese have had it as part of their culture for thousands of years. (albeit age had nothing to do with it)

[UCANSEE2]

Health care will be reserved for the young, and the wealthy.
If you get a cut, Health Care will pay to fix it. If you get arthritis, you are on your own. No treatment, no medicine.

If you do get old, and sick, then you will be put down like dogs.

Eliminating this costly and unproductive drain on the SS and Health Care program is how they plan to make it work financially.

[wagglebee]

It's an abortion repeat.

The sheeple maybe waking up to how hideous that IS.

As U.S. greys ... there will be less “compassion” for our elderly and infirmed and with Obama created “scarce resources” for proper health care ... the narcissistic, greedy younger generation may believe it is “compassionate” to put people down like animals. We are nipping at the UK’s heels on this and other issues.

You are exactly right (see my post #6).

The Baby Boomer generation is probably the most selfish group in the history of the world, my apologies to the many non-selfish Baby Boomers, but it is the truth. The Baby Boomers demanded abortion and they got it, they NEVER could have demanded euthanasia at the time because the "Greatest Generation" simply wouldn't have gone along with it and besides health care costs and the collapse of Social Security simply weren't concerns forty years ago.

As Baby Boomer selfishness "matured" they gave birth to Generations X and Y which are very possibly the most spoiled generations in history and as a result of this the Baby Boomer's children and grandchildren are starting to view them as too large and expensive a group and they are starting to see their own hubris being turned against them.

[nmh]

“As Baby Boomer selfishness “matured” they gave birth to Generations X and Y which are very possibly the most spoiled generations in history and as a result of this the Baby Boomer's children and grandchildren are starting to view them as too large and expensive a group and they are starting to see their own hubris being turned against them.”

ABSOLUTELY!

It's a snowball effect.

It is painful to watch our country self destruct.

It is about morality. Morality forms our laws. We are moving at record breaking speed into becoming a country that at large selective supports IMMORALITY. What is right is wrong and what is wrong is right - legally or otherwise. On their "way out" these parents will get a lethal dose of their own medicine.

[John Will]

Unless you’re an Executive, Professor, Politician, etc. Then you get to have health care in your old age.

[TalBlack]

It isn’t suicide if it is “assisted”.

[pray4liberty]

If you do get old, and sick, then you will be put down like dogs.

"They" may decide that no one can live past 70, healthy or not.

[UCANSEE2]

"They" may decide that no one can live past 70, healthy or not.

That will apply to the general population.

The upper elite ruling class will be using 'life enhancing' drugs in their quest for immortality, and will be above and beyond the laws they pass.

[nmh]

“It isn’t suicide if it is “assisted”.”

Taking the life of another human being is MURDER.

An accomplice to premeditated MURDER is GUILTY too!

I see you have bought into the ridiculous argument that an accomplice can play “god” and it's then okay to help MURDER someone. It is WRONG to take another's life - whether it be a helpless infant or an adult.

[jonrick46]

The Slippery Slope as predicted. The over-the-counter assist pill coming to a drug store near you.

[TalBlack]

What I meant was that suicide is a lone act and that an “assisted” suicide cannot therefore be called suicide but must then be Murder. Or in short: assisting a suicide is Murder.

[wagglebee]

Pinged from Terri Dailies