America has a very long history of eugenics and eugenic experimentation going back to her earliest days. The form has changed with different ages, but the principle still remains intact and has never disappeared. Abortion, the contraception movement, Indian internment camps, forced sterilization of African slaves or their descendants, experiments done on children of immigrants, and the promotion of “racial health” through movements such as proper eating or temperance are just a few of these things.
In modern times, major points of emphasis have been on abortion, euthanasia, and contraception for smaller family sizes. Euthanasia has become a national issue at time, such as with the infamous case of Terri Schiavo, who was able to legally murder his wife by starving her to death.
The Schiavo case is considered to be one of a few “landmark” cases in the promotion of euthanasia. In a case out of Michigan, a similar fight is taking place right now as the family of a 14-year-old boy is appealing for more time for their son after a hospital declared him “brain dead” and planned to remove his ventilator.
Bobby Reyes, a 14-year-old boy from Michigan, suffered a cardiac arrest on September 21 after experiencing an asthma attack and was airlifted to the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor.
Doctors at the hospital diagnosed Bobby as being “brain dead” and within a week of that diagnosis informed his family that his ventilator would be removed, which would bring an end to his life.
But the family points out that the hospital has admitted that there has been improvement in Bobby’s condition and that it is only possible for a living person to get better.
Bobby’s family is requesting that the hospital give him more time while they try to find another hospital that will receive him and give him ongoing care.
Last week they believed that Bobby could be transferred to and receive care in Phoenix, Arizona, with Allegiant Healthcare. But after initially agreeing to receive him, on Thursday the facility said they could not take Bobby. Allegiant claimed that they changed their decision because Bobby’s mother wanted “ongoing care,” while they were only prepared to offer him “palliation.” (source)
The case is so significant that Bobby Schindler, the father of Terri Schiavo and President of a group started in the years following the incident, the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, has also become involved in the case, saying that the motives for attempting to murder this teenager are not related to “quality of life”, but are about murdering him for financial reasons.
Eugenics is a major issue in Europe right now as “right to die” has significantly advanced. There are also multiple states in the US where similar changes have been made, particularly in areas historically associated with politically liberal movements. This could change quickly, as it would need but one major ruling from the courts to potentially mandate this practice in all states, as was what happened with both the “legalization” of adult content and in 1973 with Roe v. Wade abortion and related practices.
The idea of “right to die” is not about having people “choose” to die, but rather about legalizing the idea that there is a time that the government can choose when a person can die. In this sense, it is more accurately described as a “permission to murder” movement for people who are determined to be “no longer useful” by government standards, and since these are based on the social zeitgeist, it is only a change in what is socially acceptable to happen before what was considered sacred several decades ago becomes profane, and what was absolutely banned is now a veritable requirement to accept if one considers himself to be a good citizen. The case of the sodomite movement is a prime example of this, for within a period of thirty years, what was considered by a majority to be something either unacceptable or not publicly acceptable is now discussed ubiquitously and those who oppose it are shunned.
If it is possible for a person to say that he wants to die at a certain point because of certain reasons, what is to say that a government cannot legislate these same exact conditions given into law? It would not be difficult to realize this, and once realized, it could be used as an excuse for hospitals, doctors, and insurance companies to deny medical care to people (even if requested), to deny insurance or other forms of medical coverage to them, or even to order the death of people because they are “too old,” “too sick”, “too feeble”, or for any other number of reasons.
Currently in Iceland and many nordic nations, almost all children with Down’s Syndrome are murdered before birth, saying that it is needed because of their “quality of life” and medical condition. Why then would one not be able to make such arguments about the sick or elderly, as a legally passable case could be made if one denies the existence of absolute truth or morality.
The dystopian worlds of science fiction stories are not created from nothing, but are reflections of reality, and they come into existence gradually. One does not go from “freedom” to “slavery” overnight, but by a progressive process in which one day a man wakes up realizing he is a slave and wondering how he found himself in chains, but it was he collective decisions over a period of time that brought him to this point.
In the future, it would not be a surprise if there was an expansion of these kinds of killings, so much that one day a man looks at society with shock and anger at how any people could accept murder as a way of life. Yet it did not happen from nothing. Even the legalization of abortion was the continuation of the long pattern of eugenics and anti-family beliefs and policies, with abortion being the political implementation of beliefs held and practiced.
That which exists on the outside is an inside to processes already happening on the inside.
One can only wonder that if things are as such at the current point, where they will be in a decade from now.