When Dr. Jonathan Groner, a surgeon and ethicist at Ohio State
University, heard of a suggestion by a well-known British philosopher
that those with dementia have a "duty to die" in order to minimize the
burden they place on society and their families, he was troubled.
First, there were the moral implications of the comments that
84-year-old Baroness Mary Helen Warnock shared with the Church of
Scotland's Life and Work magazine last week, in which she stated, "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."
Such a policy could put society on a slippery slope, he said.
And he noted many of the potential moral pitfalls accompanying the
suggestion that those suffering from dementia should make a decision to
end their own lives.
But Groner said losing his own father to Alzheimer's in January
has perhaps given him the most insight into the issue -- and why the
lives of dementia sufferers must not be devalued.
....Groner is not alone in his opinion. Ethicists and Alzheimer's advocacy
groups alike are expressing outrage over Warnock's comments last week,
which echoed the opinion she put forth in an article she authored for a
Norwegian periodical, titled "A Duty to Die?"
"The
suggestion made by Baroness Mary Warnock is ignorant, insensitive and
cruel, and denies the humanity of people with Alzheimer's and
dementia," the Alzheimer's Association said in a statement issued
Wednesday.
"We dispute the fact that if you have dementia or some part of
Alzheimer's that you cannot have a quality lifestyle," noted Paul
Williams, director of public policy for the Assisted Living Federation
of America. "We've seen in the last 10 years that these residents have
been able to have the most independence and the quality of life that
can be expected of them. ... Just because you have a memory disease
[doesn't mean] that we let you die and we can kill you."
And Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the
University of Pennsylvania, said he was "shocked" by the comments when
he read them.
"No one has a duty to die," he said. "The notion that society
should 'expect' someone to end their lives because they fear being a
burden upon others is simply ethically repugnant."
....Mehlman added that Warnock is not the first to put forward the idea of
limiting health care for the elderly. In 1987, American bioethicist
Daniel Callahan expressed a somewhat similar idea in a book titled
"Setting Limits."
"Callahan
advocated that Medicare stop paying for the elderly after they reached
a certain age," Mehlman said. "Although Callahan was not absolutely
clear on this, it appeared that the cut-off age was to be around 82.
... Callahan was roundly criticized for his view, including by me."
And in at least one instance in recent history, Groner said, such Machiavellian principles have been put into practice.
"In the beginning of the era leading up to World War Two, Hitler
decided that he would need more hospital beds," he said. "If you were
an individual with dementia or a child with a deformity, you didn't
stand a chance."
Does anyone know where I can find a copy of the Baroness' actual article? I'd like to be able to quote the exact things she said.
As far as commenting on this, I've said before that I don't understand why people with disabilities dying is supposedly so selfless and heroic. Why are our deaths so wonderful to some people? What is it they don't want to deal with?
