Euthanasia
Sir: In his reply to my IcAter C. N. Gilmore seems at first to be going to make the quite reasonable point that it might be better to use all the available good nurses — as they are in such short supply — in the care of those less hopelessly afflicted than are almost fully incapacitated, congenital idiots. (In my letter I had mentioned a certain hydrocephalic boy I once saw.) But then C. N. Gilmore uses such a repellent and morally indefensible reference to the actual nursing of that boy as would take all dignity and reason from that point. He said that to devote money and quality nursing to such an end was, I quote: "an affront to human dignity . . ."
I would have thought myself that it actually defines human dignity. It seems good to me to give close attention to that weakest link whereat the human race might snap at any time — such is the present and still increasing incidence of mental and psychotic trouble among the species. Also, to be able to spare care for the virtual ' write-off ' shows a range of charity that alone might commend men to God — since it is what, in Christ, he urges and showed himself. A range, too, of sophistication, since it is only in the muscular sphere (even the mental-muscular sphere) that the crude ' evolutionary ' principle should have to apply. Or even not referring to God, such care is akin to what 'becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.' It is mercy-breeding — which is much better than ' mercy '-killing. Forgetting ethics, it is even another wisdom to try and find out why an idiot is an idiot — that's why I keep searching the problem in myself, for there is truly as well as funnily little difference between myself and an imbecile. I learned that — observing the sequestered ones. It is not a matter of intelligence — the imbecile has no access to intelligence so cannot be assessed on it; nor even ' seen ' by it. Even less so the one who has a paralysis also. There is an imprisonment, somehow. Nor should it be impossible to find the key; at any rate, we must look for it. But — put all the ' writeoffs ' in a gas-chamber? In a few years there will be as many again. Why? Because its within the human ' blood ' as yet.
The hydrocephalic boy I spoke of wasn't an idiot really; his predicament was too awesome. Apart from his head abnormality
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