By BRIAN CLOWES
Part 1
(Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For an electronic copy of chapter 23 of The Facts of Life on euthanasia, e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.)
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“Oh, for more Quality and less Quantity in Generation/ Oh, for less Suff’ring and more Wisdom in Termination” — Robert H. Williams, MD, “My Life Prayer.”
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The Four-Step Strategy. There can only be one possible ultimate outcome of the utilitarian thinking that brought us contraception and abortifacients, sterilization, population control, and abortion.
Once society compromises the paramount right to life in any way, once it sets aside certain classes of human beings and declares them disposable, once it calculates and assesses the “value” of each human life and balances it against lists of health-care expenses, the lethal dehumanization of others by the elite will continue unabated until the society either disintegrates or returns to a sanctity of life ethic.
The first step down any slippery slope is intimidating but, once a society’s downward plunge gathers momentum, it will find itself moving so quickly that it will be very difficult to stop or turn back — even if the majority wants to do so. Subsequent steps on the road to wholesale killing are always easier, as we have already observed with abortion. As always, evil takes on a life of its own.
Pro-euthanasia activists are now using precisely the same strategy used by the pro-abortion movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as they saw how successful it was. The pro-abortionists’ methods were undeniably effective: We now have abortion on demand for any reason in the United States and in most of the world — and even abortion on command in some nations, including the People’s Republic of China.
Why is it important to learn the strategy of our pro-euthanasia opponents? If we can recognize how they operate, we have a much better chance of anticipating — and then defeating — their future initiatives.
The four general steps in the pro-euthanasia strategy follow those of the pro-abortion movement very closely. These are: 1) Agitation and Activism, 2) Legalization, 3) Institutionalization, and 4) Trivialization.
The First Step: Agitation and Activism. One of the most chilling parallels between the Nazi and American pro-euthanasia movements is the pervasive propaganda used to lull the populace into a state of uncaring acceptance.
The Nazis used the newly established German film industry to crank out a succession of shallow, sloganistic movies that attempted to establish that there are certain classes of people who, by their very existence, are an unfair burden to the rest of us, and that it is really in everyone’s best interests to end the lives of these people — as humanely and as decently as possible, of course.
Naturally, sophisticated Americans would never be taken in by the relatively crude, 75-year-old Nazi propaganda flicks. Not a chance! — Or so we thought.
We Americans have willingly allowed ourselves to be lulled by latter-day euthanasia propaganda films that are nothing more than raw emotional appeals thinly disguised as refined “thinking.” These shows bear a truly remarkable similarity to the movies produced by the Nazis. There have been more than a dozen such films produced by the major networks since 1987, when the propaganda program kicked off in earnest.
The first of these was NBC’s The Right to Die, which was initially screened for families of the victims of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”). The purpose of this movie was to allow the pro-euthanasia group Concern for Dying to “educate” these families regarding the virtues of euthanasia for those with ALS.
As could be expected, NBC glowingly described the “balance of viewpoints” in this film. But the only defender of life in The Right to Die was the usual stereotyped Catholic who didn’t put up any kind of a coherent or logical argument whatsoever.
The focus of the movie was ALS sufferer “Emily,” who gradually sees the “wisdom” of accepting death and the “fact” that she is really just a burden for everyone around her. She inevitably arrives at the preordained conclusion that the only “considerate” and “courageous” course of action is — to die.
An NBC written Guide accompanying the film bemoaned the fact that 10,000 comatose patients were being kept alive at prohibitive cost. The Guide also featured euthanasia pusher Joseph Fletcher, who asked if the respondents agreed that the true issue was not the right to die (which was naturally moot), but the “right to help those who choose to die.”
The five pages of the Guide contained only two short paragraphs even hinting that there were any objections to euthanasia at all, and, of course, it alleged that “even the right-to-life groups are divided on this issue” (which was a barefaced lie).
In case the status of the film as pro-euthanasia propaganda was not clear, actress Raquel Welch, in a subsequent interview with The New York Times, stated that “I have always been a staunch supporter of individual rights and the freedom of choice.”
This is the towering intellect who once said that “I was asked to come to Chicago because Chicago is one of our 52 states, and the mandate we’ve now been given on the pro-choice abortion issue is that we have to pick up the pieces . . . in 52 states across the nation, we have to bail water now out of the boat.”
(Editor’s Note: In 2010, Raquel Welch criticized the “sexual revolution,” saying: “. . . A lack of sexual inhibitions, or as some call it, ‘sexual freedom,’ has taken the caution and discernment out of choosing a sexual partner, which used to be the equivalent of choosing a life partner. Without a commitment, the trust and loyalty between couples of childbearing age is missing, and obviously leads to incidents of infidelity. No one seems immune.”)
NBC produced a second pro-euthanasia propaganda film in the same year, 1987, entitled Mercy or Murder? This film enthusiastically endorsed Roswell Gilbert’s act of murdering his wife because she was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and wanted her suffering to end. The primary message of the film was that “Euthanasia = Love.”
Robert Young, the actor who played Marcus Welby, MD, was cast in the part of the murderer. Writer director Steven Gethers said that he intended to present a “balanced” view of the issue and would “present both sides.” However, Young told The New York Times in a subsequent interview that “I suppose this film may be one small step in the campaign to change law to consider euthanasia as a form of justifiable homicide.”
The movie did not even bother to mention that the pain of almost all Alzheimer’s patients can be eased or totally eliminated by drugs.
Also in 1987, ABC produced a pro-euthanasia puff piece entitled When the Time Comes. This two-hour film featured 34-year-old terminal cancer patient, Lyddie Travis. This program was nothing more or less than a two-hour “how-to” course in mercy killing, showing enough detail so that anyone who wanted to do so could kill another person.
Once again, the producers asserted that their show was “balanced” and “very even handed.” Of course it was.
They always are, aren’t they?
But the clear messages of this movie were that real love consists of helping a suffering person kill himself; that religious or ethical objections are for idiots and “backwards thinkers”; that cancer patients are disposable; and that not everyone is against suicide.
The movie also gave contact information on organizations that people could consult in order to help them kill themselves (but not of anti-euthanasia groups), listed the names of those “progressive” and “forward-thinking” countries that have legalized euthanasia, and showed how to assist someone in killing themselves without getting caught.
The overall message of the show was that the virtues of “love” and “friendship” outweigh any legal or moral objections to any lethal act of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide.
Stars As Promoters. One of the tactics employed by the pro-abortion movement when abortion was illegal — both in the United States and in various European countries — consisted of having famous personalities declare that they had had abortions. These stars then publicly dared the authorities to prosecute them.
The pro-abortionists couldn’t lose when they employed this tactic because, if the stars were prosecuted, they would become martyrs and cause a huge splash of pro-abortion publicity. If the stars got off scot-free (as they invariably did), this sent the strong message to the public that it was acceptable to flout the law.
Today, of course, we have pro-euthanasiasts employing precisely the same tactic. The stars are now killing their parents or spouses and in effect dare the law to punish them.
One example is Betty Rollin, who for more than ten years was a correspondent for the NBC Nightly News and ABC’s Nightline. She publicly described how she researched fatal poisons and stood at the bedside of her mother as she overdosed and died. Her book Last Wish was, of course, warmly received by the pro-euthanasia propagandists. Naturally, there was not even the slightest hint of any type of prosecution, even though Rollin’s book includes a “how-to” chapter on suicide by poison, in violation of the law.
As we will see in the next article, the primary goal of the second stage of pro-euthanasia groups is the legalization of passive voluntary euthanasia — the withholding of food, water, and oxygen — which, of course, is only an intermediate step to the ultimate goal of direct euthanasia on demand.
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