UK Official Denigrates Elderly with Profound Cognitive Impairments by Using the Hateful V-Epithet
Sickening. Just sickening. A public official in the UK who is "Labour's czar for the elderly," posits a duty to die by having society refuse to medically support demented patients, and denigrates them with the V-Epithet to boot. From the story: Dame Joan Bakewell says she does not want people to be kept alive because of machinery when their 'identity has ceased to exist.' Old people should be allowed to die if they become 'vegetables', Joan Bakewell has said. Labour's czar for the elderly said she had made a living will that will mean she is 'not kept alive if I'm a vegetable'. She added that people should not be helped to go on living by machinery if they had outlived their normal lifespan. The 75-year-old television presenter also called for laws that would allow terminally ill patients to be given fatal doses of drugs. The controversial call for assisted dying and allowing people with dementia to die came a week after Dame Joan's appointment as the 'voice of older people'. It comes at a time of growing pressure from supporters of euthanasia and assisted dying for legislation to allow the elderly and disabled to be helped to die when they become too sick to look after themselves.Dame Joan told the Daily Telegraph: 'Everybody fears becoming unable to speak, unable to communicate. That's a really alarming prospect and I think it is quite a good idea to give thought to it now and to write a living will and to make provision, tell your nearestand dearest what you want.' She added: 'I don't want people to be kept alive simply because there is a lot of enormous machinery that can keep them pumped up and with all the organs going, when in fact their identity has ceased to exist.'
She doesn't want people kept alive. Well, tough toenails. I support advance directives, but this is promoting futile care theory based on her values and who she thinks have lives worth living.
When a public official with such a denigrating mentality toward people with disabilities and the elderly is appointed to high office, when she openly disparages the helpless with a hateful epithet intended to dehumanize and degrade, when she promotes euthanasia and what can only be called a duty to die--and she is considered the voice of the elderly!--well, the UK is in very big trouble. But we already knew that, didn't we?
Bakewell should be fired for hate speech and for clearly indicating that she will not fight for the equal moral worth of those in her public policy charge. She should be stripped of her portfolio immediately.
Labels: Ageism. Discrimination against People with Cognitive Disabilities. Duty to die. United Kingdom.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 2:20 PM
10 Comments
10 Comments:
What happens to the elderly under her care who are Orthodox Jews, Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Atheists who believe in human exceptionalism, etc., who feel it is immoral to commit suicide and hold on to the right to life as a part of their belief system? Will they be forced to shuffle off the mortal coil before their time? What if *they* want to be on those machines until their bodies give out? Hmm? If an elderly person writes a living will saying that until brain death by natural causes is assured, he wants to stay on a feeding tube and mecahnical assistance?
Her absurd policy is elitist; she doesn't have the right to decide that someone's life isn't worth living anymore.
What I always say/think in response to such people is, "and I assume that you're going to go first?"
The voice of the elderly? Wow. Satire really is dead.
I just learned in a telephone conversation today that my mother is on the verge of believing in assisted suicide. I cut off the conversation before she could say anything commital, but I think actually she thinks the Oregon plan is a good idea. She has multiple myeloma. Fortunately the state she lives in doesn't allow it legally, and at the moment she is feeling quite well, up and about, and not in any pain. But I was shocked. It was interesting: I told her, thinking she'd agree with me, about the cases in Oregon where cancer patients got letters saying that the state health plan would pay for their suicide but not their chemo. She said, "But I bet they jumped at the chance." I said, "No, of course not! They were upset that they got a letter like that. That's how it got into the news." At least I think that shook up some of her preconceived ideas, which she probably gets from television.
safepres -
LOL! I love it. Yeah, people always idolize death until presented with having to be the one to die.
Suicide is a sign of hopelessness. One should never give up hope
Lydia,
After attending to my father as he died I talked to my mother. She was in the process of putting her wishes in writing so that I would not have to make decisions for her that I made for my father. After assuring her that I made very few intellectually tough decisions and that my father dying would have been emotionally trying under the best of conceivable circumstances we reviewed her wishes together. I was stunned how many places she was in line with the "right to die" mentality. She is in perfect health, so this is not a pressing issue, but on one point I did advise her that I would be arrested and thrown in jail before I let a doctor dehydrate her to death. It was ulitmately a good conversation after we sorted through my horror at some of her views. She honestly thought she was protecting us by not putting us in a position where she needed care. How sick that our culture is successfully convincing our parents that their unavoidable aging and physical deterioration is a burden on their children. Better that you just die and not imposition anyone. I have to tell you that hearing that my own mother bought that line stoked the fire in me on that issue.
These are the types of things that convince me that politicians shouldn't be allowed to do anything but declair war!
Not really, but still, that is aboslutely dispicable.
Many thanks Wesley. John Smeaton, SPUC director, has commented on her remarks as well as releated UK matters:
Not obeying unjust laws and policies is an essential part of pro-life witness
Thanks, Jay. I've always known that my mom was in line with "not wanting to be a burden" and that stuff. What really took me aback here was her semi-support for actual, overt, active suicide. Not just for avoiding "extraordinary means" or something. That astonished me, because my parents are the sort of people who raised me never to take up smoking because "your body is the temple of God and you shouldn't harm it." I mean, how does that jibe with destroying your body altogether? The trouble is that I know quite well that if I argued with her, it would only harden her positions. I think it's just theoretical for now, since PAS is illegal in her state. Thanks goodness!
buy wow gold
4.We will NOT respond to incoming tells by fellow players to maintain the confidentiality of your
character.
5 l2 power leveling .We will leave any items and gold acquired during the Powerleveling service. You keep everything
I would also like to say that bigotry against the elderly is planet-wide. Elders here in MA are treated like crap.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home