Madam, - The British baroness Mary Warnock has suggested recently that elderly people should consider suicide to avoid being a burden on their families and society. It seems to be the opinion of this so-called medical ethicist that the old, like elephants, should just creep off and get out of the way.
She also appears to believe that premature babies should not be given every possible help and medical attention. It is her view that the parents of these children should be asked to pay for the cost of keeping them alive on life support machines if doctors write off their chances of leading a healthy life.
What an utterly monstrous notion! It is difficult to imagine anything more inhuman and immoral. Has British society reached such a nadir of moral decay, such an absence of basic compassion, that these horrible statements from someone who is considered something of an "expert" in ethics may actually be deemed acceptable in certain quarters? Is the life of an elderly person of no value and importance? Is this the gratitude and respect the elderly deserve? Do they somehow cease to be human beings with innate dignity simply by virtue of becoming old and feeble? Do they no longer deserve and need to be loved, cherished and cared for?
This is where the argument for euthanasia inevitably leads. The old are made to feel in the way and unwanted and they have a "duty" and an "obligation" to die. They are made to feel "unreasonable" if they should be so "selfish" as to want to continue living and hoping for love. What a truly dreadful way to treat the old and the vulnerable. The inhumanity of it is deeply shocking.
The views of Baroness Warnock are simply outrageous, but I suppose they really shouldn't surprise us too much. After all, Britain is a society which tolerates, with blasé insouciance, the widespread killing of its unborn children. - Yours, etc.,
ANTHONY REDMOND, North Great George's Street, Dublin 1.