A prominent Church of Scotland minister was criticised yesterday for suggesting that too much money was spent in Britain helping old people to "cling to life".
The Rev Maxwell Craig, a Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland who led a televised vigil in the aftermath of the Dunblane massacre in 1996, claimed that spending public money on people over 75 often maintained a "half life".
The minister, who is 76, added that most older people would probably prefer to die before reaching the age of 95.
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He said he was not advocating withdrawing care from the elderly, but believed that the well-being and health of the next generation was more important than "squeezing out another few years".
In a column in his local newspaper, he added: "Is our nation, acting wisely to plough so much of our NHS and social work funding into the care of the elderly at the risk of giving less focus to the needs of the young?
"Am I alone in thinking that disproportinate spending for the rapidly growing elderly section of the population may not represent the correct balance between the needs of the generations?
"Am I alone in thinking that disproportionate spending for the rapidly growing elderly section of the population may not represent the correct balance between the needs of the generations?"
The leading thinkers are with you. In fact, there's even a name for the movement you unconsciously belong to.
What do they teach them in these schools?
I remember a Star Trek: TNG episode that touches on this subject...here's a quote from the "plot" on "The Half Life" from wiki:
ReplyDelete"Timicin is about to turn 60; and on Kaelon II, everyone who reaches the age of 60 kills him or herself in what is known to their people as "the Resolution", a means of ridding their culture of the need to care for the elderly. Lwaxana is outraged by this fact, and when Picard makes it clear that he will not interfere in the planet's local affairs, Lwaxana tries to beam herself down to the planet to halt the process. When she is thwarted, she goes into hysterics until Deanna comforts her. After Lwaxana and Timicin end up spending an evening together, he tries to explain the custom of the Resolution to her, stating that they should never expect to be repaid for the care they show their children, and a fixed age had to be selected because just randomly choosing a time to die would be heartless."
I wonder if the reverend was a fan of the show??
Ann
Oh yeah. That was one of the very few STNG episodes I liked.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, her daughter doesn't comfort her at all. She tells her mother that she's not allowed to be upset about that nice man committing suicide because it was just their culture and, after all, every culture is equally valid doncha know.
The politically correct answer was crap and everyone knew it. It was perfectly clear that Lwaxana was the only one in the entire thing who had any sense.
That show often shot its own philosophies in the foot.