British 'Moralist' says Dementia Patients Have a 'Duty to Die'
"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."
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LONDON, (LifeSiteNews) - In an interview, Baroness Mary Helen Warnock has said that people suffering dementia have a duty to commit suicide.Baroness Warnock, called the "philosopher queen", is regarded as Britain's leading moral philosopher. She said that she hopes people will soon be "licensed to put others down" who have become a burden on the health care system.
She told the Church of Scotland's Life and Work magazine, "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." In another article for a Norwegian periodical, titled "A Duty to Die?" she suggests, "There's nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so [commit suicide] for the sake of others as well as yourself.In other contexts, sacrificing oneself for one's family would be considered good. I don't see what is so horrible about the motive of not wanting to be an increasing nuisance."
Baroness Warnock's comments come as prominent voices in Britain's House of Lords continue to advocate for legalised euthanasia and assisted suicide.Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, said she was concerned about the influence Warnock has. "Because of her previous experiences and well-known standing on contentious moral issues, Baroness Warnock automatically gives moral authority to what are entirely immoral view points."
Contemporary utilitarianism - the idea that individual lives are of no inherent value and can be sacrificed for the good of society - is widely held in modern academia and medical circles. The principles of utilitarianism form the foundation for the modern "bioethics" (of which Baroness is a prominent proponent) that has largely replaced traditional Natural Law medical ethics that follow the principle of "do no harm" in many modern national health care systems.
John Smeaton, director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, wrote that Warnock's comments are "a regression to the brutal ancient world, when enforced suicide as a punishment was commonplace." Warnock's ideas, however, can also be traced to a period of history much closer to our own. In his book "The Origins of Nazi Genocide: from Euthanasia to the Final Solution", US holocaust historian Henry Friedlander chronicled the growth and application of utilitarian and eugenic philosophies identical to Lady Warnock's.
Under the influence of utilitarian eugenic philosophies, also called "social Darwinism", German officials in the 1930s instituted a program of mass euthanasia for persons the state considered undesirable, labeling them "lebensunwertes leben": life unworthy of life and "useless eaters." Among the groups targeted for euthanasia were developmentally disabled people, disabled children, and elderly people suffering from dementia.
In Nazi Germany's Aktion T4 programme, in which the gas chamber technology was developed, patients "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination," were killed by physicians on the grounds that they were a burden to their families and to the state. After the war, the Nuremberg Trials found evidence that about 275,000 people had been euthanised.
An important part of the Nazi euthanasia program was a campaign of propaganda to convince the public that euthanasia was a "compassionate" solution for patients and their families and that it would control the costs of health care.
As one of the world's most prominent proponents of the "new" utilitarianism, in 2005, Baroness Warnock said that Britain should follow the Dutch euthanasia model in setting an age limit below which premature babies would not routinely be resuscitated. She said that only those infants who show a strong chance of living to be healthy should be allowed to survive.
Her interview this week was not the first time she has suggested that there is an obligation for suicide among seriously ill people. In 2004, she told the Times that parents who want to continue medical treatment for their seriously ill children should have to pay for it themselves. "I don't see what is so horrible about the motive of not wanting to be an increasing nuisance," she said. "I am not ashamed to say some lives are more worth living than others."Maybe it has to come down to saying: 'Okay, they can stay alive but the family will have to pay for it.' Otherwise it will be an awful drain on public resources," she said.
She told the Church of Scotland's Life and Work magazine, "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." In another article for a Norwegian periodical, titled "A Duty to Die?" she suggests, "There's nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so [commit suicide] for the sake of others as well as yourself.In other contexts, sacrificing oneself for one's family would be considered good. I don't see what is so horrible about the motive of not wanting to be an increasing nuisance."
Baroness Warnock's comments come as prominent voices in Britain's House of Lords continue to advocate for legalised euthanasia and assisted suicide.Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, said she was concerned about the influence Warnock has. "Because of her previous experiences and well-known standing on contentious moral issues, Baroness Warnock automatically gives moral authority to what are entirely immoral view points."
Contemporary utilitarianism - the idea that individual lives are of no inherent value and can be sacrificed for the good of society - is widely held in modern academia and medical circles. The principles of utilitarianism form the foundation for the modern "bioethics" (of which Baroness is a prominent proponent) that has largely replaced traditional Natural Law medical ethics that follow the principle of "do no harm" in many modern national health care systems.
John Smeaton, director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, wrote that Warnock's comments are "a regression to the brutal ancient world, when enforced suicide as a punishment was commonplace." Warnock's ideas, however, can also be traced to a period of history much closer to our own. In his book "The Origins of Nazi Genocide: from Euthanasia to the Final Solution", US holocaust historian Henry Friedlander chronicled the growth and application of utilitarian and eugenic philosophies identical to Lady Warnock's.
Under the influence of utilitarian eugenic philosophies, also called "social Darwinism", German officials in the 1930s instituted a program of mass euthanasia for persons the state considered undesirable, labeling them "lebensunwertes leben": life unworthy of life and "useless eaters." Among the groups targeted for euthanasia were developmentally disabled people, disabled children, and elderly people suffering from dementia.
In Nazi Germany's Aktion T4 programme, in which the gas chamber technology was developed, patients "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination," were killed by physicians on the grounds that they were a burden to their families and to the state. After the war, the Nuremberg Trials found evidence that about 275,000 people had been euthanised.
An important part of the Nazi euthanasia program was a campaign of propaganda to convince the public that euthanasia was a "compassionate" solution for patients and their families and that it would control the costs of health care.
As one of the world's most prominent proponents of the "new" utilitarianism, in 2005, Baroness Warnock said that Britain should follow the Dutch euthanasia model in setting an age limit below which premature babies would not routinely be resuscitated. She said that only those infants who show a strong chance of living to be healthy should be allowed to survive.
Her interview this week was not the first time she has suggested that there is an obligation for suicide among seriously ill people. In 2004, she told the Times that parents who want to continue medical treatment for their seriously ill children should have to pay for it themselves. "I don't see what is so horrible about the motive of not wanting to be an increasing nuisance," she said. "I am not ashamed to say some lives are more worth living than others."Maybe it has to come down to saying: 'Okay, they can stay alive but the family will have to pay for it.' Otherwise it will be an awful drain on public resources," she said.
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Baroness Warnock - a very dangerous individual. The best response would be to flatly ignore her. These appointed and self-appointed moralists are given way to much credence. After you, Ms Warnock - you first, then we'll consider it!
If you are a moralist, you're wasting people's life and the planet's resources.
Unfortunately, in addition to being the most useless excuses for life on the planet, moralists are also the most smug. They think they have a 'duty to live.'
Dementia people are loved and fun to be around! Today my mother forgot where her room was and wound up back in the original place she was before and said now which way! I told her mother come have a seat with me at the table and maybe you can help me. I told her what a great job she did and she said thank you bee I am glad we did good together!
An amendment:
It is well-known that the doctrinaire ideologues of the "green" movement consider Mankind a danger to the planet, whose numbers must first be drastically reduced, then carefully and rigorously controlled.
The notorious "comments" emitted by the Baroness are nothing other, or nothing less than the old Malthusian, and subsequent (British) eugenicist sophistries (the which Adolf Hitler adopted in his Aktion T4 programme), now being propagandized in order to "prepare" the "masses" for nothing less than a culling of the world population, in order to reduce it from its current approximately 6.5 billion individual men, women, and children to some 1.5 bn.
There is no difference, essentially, between the Baroness’s call for enforced “suicide” and the idea, promoted by advisor to Adolf Hitler Dr Karl Brandt, that the “life not worthy of life”, should be “mercifully terminated”.
She admits to being “... not ashamed to say some lives are more worth living than others.” Thus, she exposes her true nature.
The reader is urged to peruse the T4 history, and carefully examine the doctrines of the neo-pagan “back-to-nature” “new-age”, “green” cults, the Gore doctrine of “anthropogenic climate change” - the which is increasingly being revealed at the great fraud and hoax it is – and all the other fraudulent, purportedly “scientific” propaganda being carefully promoted to "change the people’s behavior".
These ideas are anything but scientific; they are in fact, anti-scientific, anti-human, and anti-Christian.
They even dare to conflate the sublime teaching of the Master, when he said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13).
I here wish to commend Lord Christopher Monckton for his courageous proactive stance in taking a lead offensive in confuting the “global warming” scam, in the face of the overwhelming appeasement displayed by the popular “mainstream” media and so-called pundits.
Christopher Monckton is to be praised and exhorted for his deeply Christian and classical-humanistic stance; he has recognized the essentially genocidal aspect of the frauds here referred to and opposed.
A quote from another infamous member of the British aristocratic oligarchy (names withheld to protect the guilty): "Were I to be reincarnated, I should like to return as a deadly virus, so I can do something about the population problem." His very reference to reincarnation reveals that although he attends “church” every Sunday, and is seen to be seemingly a good “Christian”, belies that appearance — or else, why say it?
It is well-known that the doctrinaire ideologues of the "green" movement consider Mankind a danger to the planet, whose numbers must be carefully and rigorously controlled.
The disgraceful and manifestly evil philosophies of the so-called English enlightenment; of Locke, Bentham (his outrageous “utilitarianism”, developed by J.S Mill), Smith (“trickle-down”), Hobbes, Mandeville (“private vice, public virtue”), et al., should be discredited once and for all.
Indeed, may we all have peace, love and grace, and may the Lord have mercy on us all.
To Marisela DeVictoria. I never for one minute said or believed that my Grannie or even Jesus were a nuisance. I never even said Jesus killed Himself, although He did choose to die. An example of assisted suicide perhaps? Anyway, don't you worry yourself too much with how we conduct our lives here in the United Kingdom; it really is none of America's business.
To Michael Norbury. Jesus chose to die but he did not kill himself. And the reason for his dying was not at all because he was a nuisance!! I am sure Baroness Warnock has no children of her own. If she did. I am sure she would change her mind. If my child got terminally ill, it wound never enter my mind to kill him. I think she is crazy.
Baroness, my mother suffers dimentia and I am taking care of her along with my other brothers and sisters.
I fear the pain I will cause Christ if I even thought of using the suicide card that so many find so easy to use today.
So easy way out is the way to go. Its no wonder our world is in the "toilet". Suppose we had all said that during WWII where do you think we would have been this "give up" instead of "stiff upper lip".
Yes, people suffer but I also know people can be made comfortable. I for one have seen people die, suffer and knew people who tried and have committed suicide and still through the darkness of that tunnel I still find some way of going on.
May we all have peace, love and grace under pressure all the rest of our lives and may God have mercy on all of us.
Dementia is of the mind, not the body, so the physical aspect of death is not painful. I am watching my Mom go through this and she is going to be 90 in February. Although she drives me crazy at times, only God knows what is in store for both of us and I for one would and could never do anything to hasten it.
After watching my Grandmother die over the past month in a particularly tortured manner because of dementia, I entirely sympathize and agree with the Right Honourable Baroness Warnock. Individual's should have the legal right to determine whether to live in agony and increase the suffering of their loved ones, or to die in peace and dignity for their sake, their loved ones and the greater benefit of society. Didn't Jesus choose to die for the benefit of Mankind?