A video from 2017 has been put in circulation by the Dutch society, in which an individual with Down syndrome is being lectured on how much he costs society: “You cost ten times more than a regular individual, up there with people in nursing homes.” Furthermore, the individual with the Down syndrome is being treated with sarcasm: “You are a very valuable individual, aren’t you?” This recrimination is done with the implicit goal of encouraging legislation to terminate such assistance to individuals with Down syndrome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O_qhC7goYI
In a powerful testimony in regards to the same attitudes being circulated by some US Congress members in 2017, a guest speaker with Down syndrome argues against such eugenics techniques, as it may in fact be the beginning of an ever enlarging circle of exclusions for medical care, for individuals with disabilities:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTbe-u-n0T4
The argument that “selective denial of valid medical care” (valid from the perspective of the doctors treating the patients), could and should never happen in a civilized society is at the crux of this argument. The issues are problematic when insurances and governments decide to refuse (or postpone until it’s too late) medical care, in order to save money.
Articles such as Time’s front cover story: How to Die (June 11 2012) and News Week front cover story: The Case for Killing Granny (September 21 2009), have brought these issues into public discussion already this century.
And Bill Gates openly discusses in 2010 how: “wouldn’t be better not to lay off those 3 teachers and refuse medical treatment to one patient for three months? But that’s called the Death Panel and you are not supposed to have that discussion.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03MZG9vK0W8
Yes indeed Mr. Gates and why is that?
Whether it be a fetus diagnosed with the Down Syndrome and being aborted against the wish of the mother because of insurance and/or governmental decisions, or grandma who is being denied against her wish by the same culprits, medical treatment which would have prolonged her life for three more months, a person is worth living and it behooves to her to choose herself the extent of using available medical treatment.
We are not in the year 2018, because we applauded and supported to victories Nazi and Communist socialist states, which invariably preached a “final solution” in regards to their citizens with disabilities, whom they saw as “burdens.” Quite the opposite.
The amount of the GDP expenditures being juxtaposed to one service versus the other, is a simplistic and inefficient approach to resolving budgetary matters. Instead of focusing to turning to the government to limit and deny medical care, we should make the government accountable of eliminating the endemic fraudulent practices of said insurances, which alone would compensate for any if not all of the expenses sought by individuals for their own care from the person centered approach.
Any efforts to regress to eugenics (or selective breeding and/or the subsequent elimination of the ‘unfit’), is going to result in turning us back into a predatory savage society.
By Gabriel Gherasim
