The American Muslim (publication) – “Euthanasia: a Modest Proposal” by Rev. Frank Julian Gelli

It’s been a long couple of weeks.  The month started with the death of Jack Kevorkian and a nonstop barrage of eulogizing and mythologizing his life.  This week, we had the sorry spectacle of Terry Pratchett’s “infomercial” on assisted suicide featuring the spectacle of another rich disabled man drinking some poison and dying on camera.

It all gets old very fast.

I was on the lookout for something a little different.  I’m a little tired right now to thumb my own nose at the promoters of assisted suicide and euthanasia – and to have it come off convincingly.

So, instead, I found someone who is thumbing his nose at them and sharing his message with you.  It was just what I needed this Friday.

From The American Muslim, here are the first paragraphs to Euthanasia: a Modest Proposal by Rev. Frank Julian Gelli:

It is in the air. Eu and Thanatos. Two Greek words, meaning a ‘good death’.

Sir Terry Pratchett, science fiction novelist and Alzheimer sufferer, made a documentary about ‘assisted dying’. The aim: to make euthanasia legal in Britain. Sir Terry’s wife is not in favour, apparently, but he is. Golly! Verily, the Book of Proverbs is right, ‘a good wife is worth more than rubies’. I confess: If I had a wife, I would like her to be like Mrs Pratchett.

Euthanasia-talk is topical indeed. Elderly people in British care homes are victims of spending cuts. The quality of their care is deteriorating. Privatisation has resulted in falling standards. The financial crisis bites. State support is short. It can’t go on like this. And so on.

Good death fans of course swear up and down that it is voluntary euthanasia they are proposing. No one would be forced to top himself. Fair enough, conceptually. Still, when I was a parish priest I have dealt long enough in funerals and bereavements to be perhaps a wee bit sceptical of the happy concept. Where there is will, there is a way. Geddit?

That, however, you can argue, is carping. We must take the bull by the horns. Tackle the problem at the roots. Enough of pussyfooting. Time has time to be truly radical.

In 1729 the Irish writer Jonathan Swift published his pamphlet, A Modest Proposal for Preventing Children of Poor People in Ireland from being a Burden to the People or Parents…’etcetera. Simply put, Swift suggested that the large, excess child population of Ireland should be eaten. A one year old’s flesh was most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, the great man averred.

It was a brilliant, stupendous idea. Because it bypassed the matter of the child’s voluntary submission to his lot. At the age of one, children are not capable of consent, so the matter of their agreeing to being eaten could not arise. It was ideal, moral, socially useful cannibalism.  Swift was a genius.

So am I. A genius-like priest.  Immodestly, I propose something similar. Let us eat the old folks. It not fair they should feel useless cast-offs. Their dignity demands they should have a use. As food. Let us eat them.

You can see where this is going, of course.  The good Rev. has done a nice job with this one, although I’d argue it would be a little stronger without the last paragraph.  But that’s a matter of taste more than anything.

If you’re in the mood to read something that treats Terry Pratchett and his fellow euthanasia enthusiasts with the appropriate amount of (dis)respect, please read the rest of Rev. Gelli’s essay here.

It was a great read for a Friday and getting in a better mood for the weekend.  –Stephen Drake