Snake Oil Sale of Euthanasia for the Elderly and The Suffering from Dementia

Over on Mercatornet there is an excellent article that exposes the slick salesmanship of euthanasia salesmen like Philip Nitschke.  We of course can't forget that eugenic storm trooper the Baroness Warnock. Here is a sample to whet your appetite:

Think about it: if euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal do you really think that the excellent, but often expensive and sometimes time-consuming, treatments that are now available to us will stand as a genuine option if there’s a cheaper, easier solution? Sure, perhaps no one you know would be as callous to suggest to an ailing relative that they’d be better off dead, but subtly in those circumstances people may well come to feel it their duty to die. That was certainly the opinion of the UK’s Baroness Warnock when, a few years ago, she had the audacity to tell an assembly of elderly dementia sufferers that they were an unacceptable expense on the public purse and they had a “duty to die”. Euthanasia and assisted suicide limit choice, not Alzheimer’s or dementia.

Cowardly Compassion and Caring

I checked recently for responses to my comment on the Compassion and Caring blog in response to Dan Hankinson's recent blog post. To my surprise, I found that the imbeciles at C and C had removed my comment. So much for their alleged support for freedom. That is, unless the freedom you seek is to murder yourself.

This proves that the folks are at C and C truly are cowards..

Compassion and Caring Got It Wrong

Compassion and Caring is the new name of the old Hemlock Society. They advocate and lobby for laws permitting assisted suicide.

Dustin Hankinson recently wrote:

The Death with Dignity law sets out a detailed process under which only terminally ill patients, meaning those with a diagnosis of less than six months to live, qualify. Furthermore, those individuals must be deemed mentally and psychologically competent by two separate physicians.
There is no room for error or slope-slipping, as it is the patient who has to pursue this option for themselves.

I posted a response to this article suggesting that Mr. Hankinson check the recent history of the Netherlands and Oregon. Supposed safeguards in the law have not prevented involuntary euthanasia from happening. Perfectly healthy people who were depressed were given the medical means to murder themselves.

The slippery slope is very much a real danger.  

God Bless the Bishop

Bischop von Galen

I would like to honor Catholic Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen.  The good bishop had the courage to speak out against the Nazi's murder of the handicapped and disabled through the Akton T-4 program. May God raise up more men and women like him.

Deadly Down Syndrome

At the conclusion of World War II a serious of legal trials were held in Germany. Certain members of the Nazi party were charged with crimes against humanity. The defendants were active participants in government sanctioned genocide of Jews, the mentally ill, and other humans the Nazi's deemed as undeserving of life. Part of Nazi society included a program referred to as Akton T-4. Under this program the mentally disabled, and handicapped were systematically rounded up and murdered. People at the time were aghast to learn of this sanctioned program.

Today there is a new genocide that may be eagerly recommended to expecting parents. This genocide is against unborn children diagnosed with Down Syndrome. Doctors are able to run tests that are supposed to predict the likelihood of babies being born with Down Syndrome. According to the website Disaboom.com it is estimated that 80% of mothers who are told of the strong possibility of delivering a Down Syndrome baby will opt to kill the child through abortion.

The rationale for all of this is apparently a desire to not raise a less than perfect child who may require more than normal care. A study conducted in 2000 found that 25% of doctors who explained prenatal test results indicating the possiblity of Down Syndrome delivered the news with a negative spin or actively encouraged parents to murder the child through abortion. This is ethnic cleansing at its finest. It is also evidence that the eugenic movement did not end with the defeat of the Nazis. This eugenic mindset is not found behind the banner of a swastika. Rather, it is more subtle and as a result dangerous.

America has quickly joined Cambodia with killing fields of our own. Our killing fields are not managed by Khmer Rouge cadres, but rather medical professionals who most of us look to as the protectors of life.

Compassionate Murder

Slogans are Not Logical Arguments!

The longer I live the more convinced I become that pro-death advocates are incapable of making or following a logical argument. These advocates, among others, have taken to using sloganeering in place of marshaling arguments. Buzzwords have now replaced the syllogism. The benefits of buzzword sloganeering is that it requires little to no thought to produce a response in most readers.

The most misused buzzword by euthanasia advocates is compassion. Compassion conjures up images of care, love, and sympathy. The rub is when it is used to describe the act of murdering someone and ending his/her life prematurely. I can't recall a time when the concept of murder has ever been considered compassionate. Our laws require that murders be punished, but not lauded as loving or kind.

People may grow tired of reading me call euthanasia murder, but that is exactly what it is. Compassion, mercy, and care have little to do with the rightness or wrongness of this practice. It has always been and always will be a immoral action regardless of the volume of slogans used to justify it.

HHH 

The Loss of Reason

Irrationality

I find that one of the most common defenses of legalized abortion is fallacious at best. The argument goes something like: A woman has a right to do what she wants with her body. Pregnancy interferes with her body. Therefore, Ending the pregnancy restores a woman's control of her own body. There is no arguing that killing the unborn does free a woman's body from having to contend with a life growing within it.

Red Herrings

The error of this is argument is a fallacy called a red herring. The basic idea hearkens to the practice of dragging a herring over a trail to throw off the scent. The argument above does stink more than a little of herring fumes.

You see, the woman's right to control the body should not even enter into this debate; it is a distraction or red herring to the crux of the issue. The real issue is should anyone have a right to murder an unborn child. The question therefore centers around the ethics of permissible murder. This is the central issue of abortion. While the women's bodily freedom argument does play well to the masses, it reeks more of sophistry than a compelling argument.

 A Matter of Law

Murder is prohibited by the laws of the land of the United States. The real issue of abortion is whether it is permissible to murder unborn children as a matter of convenience? This question is one most abortion proponents do not want to face. They prefer to hide behind slogans that encourage an emotional response, but do nothing to address the issue of murdering the unborn child.

Emotion 1 Logic 0

The increasing ignorance of our culture has come from a preference for shallow emotionalism. The masses prefer to be lead about by how something "feels" to them, rather than ferreting out the real issues and wrestling with them. Perhaps, one strategy of opposing the culture of death would be to again teach people how to reason and recognise the laws of logic. Without this we are left with a situation of trying to philosophize with an infant who is more concerned with having an empty diaper and a place to get its next bottle of ecstasy than find truth.