Killing Those No Longer ‘Useful’

by Letters Editor · October 13, 2017

Henry R Sylvester, Cape Town – Two terminally ill persons, Dr Sue Walter, 43, and Dieter Harck, 68, jointly submitted an application at the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg in September, calling for the legalisation of euthanasia for consenting patients so that they can end their lives.

What is rather startling in this case is that a professional medical doctor is turning her vocation to heal, cure and comfort into the mouthpiece and test case for euthanasia.

Dying With Dignity Sells a Lie

“Dying with dignity”, as the euthanasia campaign is called, is a euphemism for an act that lowers a human being to a utilitarian end.

The age and condition of the human person is now the yardstick that determines their value and ultimately their useful or uselessness to the family or society.

Supporters of euthanasia use flowery language and words to numb the senses to sell a lie as truth. Those who kill the innocent in society are murderers; those who kill the unborn are abortionists; those who seek to legally end the life of a human being because there is no cure for their suffering can aptly be called executioners.

Is it rational that a medical doctor should write the script for sustaining life and also the script for deliberate death?

Assisted suicide is not “first prize” — healing, comfort, love and patience for the sick is. Just because we cannot rid the patient of the disease, it does not follow that we rid the patient from society.

It Makes Others Murderers

Dr Walter has surely injected many patients to bring healing, as her profession requires. Surely the “medical experts” who wish to introduce a law should have the knowledge and understanding that filling a syringe with poison to be inserted into the vein of a living person places the burden on another to perform the act of an executioner.

The human endeavour is the pursuit of life and happiness. We have laws designed to order society for the common good of all. The golden rule of doing unto others what you wish they do unto you is the bedrock of just about all legal systems.

Society is Ordered To Protect Lives

Why do we have laws that guide us on how to obey the road ordinances; how we build our houses; how we protect the safety of our citizens with fire systems and health and safety measures to protect all forms of life?

Why do we spend billions to do research to find cures for the myriad ailments that beset humanity?

Do we abandon our desire for the common good and give power to a few that espouse the desire for “some” good that excludes the aged, infirm, institutionalised, the innocent, and those who cannot speak for themselves?