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Euthanasia
Euthanasia
The following is from a
story on “60 Minutes” (
Dame Cicily
a woman given
the equivalent of knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for her years of work with
the dying
and the founder of the Hospice Movement in England and the U.S.
gave the estimation that the problem with granting or encouraging use of the
“right” to die is that it will soon become the duty to die. Knowing the
depravity of man
she said
it is unthinkable that once old people enlist the
help of friends or family
they will soon be expected to enlist such help to
“end it all.” People will say to the ones dying and in pain
“You know
you
don’t have to go on like this. You could end it all painlessly and quickly
and
stop your own pain and the hardship on your family.” ──
Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical Preaching》
This
downward slide was explained dramatically by Dr. Leo Alexander in an article in
the New England Journal of Medicine
written in 1949. Dr. Alexander was
a consultant to the Secretary of War in the Nuremberg Trials. He had
extraordinary access to accused Nazi war criminals in the medical community.
Writing from that unique perspective
Dr. Alexander argued that so-called
"compassionate killing" of the terminally ill inevitably set the stage
for the Holocaust. He wrote:
Whatever
proportions these crimes finally assumed
it became evident to all who
investigated them that they had started from small beginnings. The beginnings
at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of the
physicians. It started with the acceptance of the attitude ... that there is
such a thing as life not worthy to be lived. This attitude in its early stages
concerned itself merely with the severely and chronically sick. Gradually the
sphere of those to be included in this category was enlarged to encompass the
socially unproductive
the ideologically unwanted
the racially unwanted and
finally all non-Germans.
Before
his death
Dr. Alexander told a friend that trends in our country were
"much like Germany in the '20s and '30s. The barriers against killing are
coming down."
J.
Dobson and G. Bauer
Children at Risk
Word
1990
p. 145.