Ageicide

Hans Calmeyer Legacy

Righteous Gentile 1903-1972

“Lawyer for Life”


	WHY SAVE LIVES ?

Ageism, Ageicide and Euthanasia are not the same, though they may all result from the institution of what is now popularly (or unpopularly) described as “death panels” ... self-designated groups and appointed committees that judge whether the survival of a certain person is somehow more valuable than the amount of money required to support or save that life. Hans Calmeyer quite clearly did not make a value judgment about any specific life: he defended lives that he did not even come to know. In his time, the Nazis arrogated the ability to determine who was valuable and who was not, who was of “quality stock” and who was not.

Ageism is discrimination against the elderly, in jobs and other venues. Ageicide is the killing of the elderly, just because.

Ageicide tends to be “justified” by those who claim that the productive years are over, and that it would be compassionate to avoid the suffering and illness that comes with age. Calmeyer would have had none of this: his culture valued the wisdom that comes and remains with age, and the dignity of the human being even in frailty. His parents and family were generally blessed with old age (except for his two young brothers lost in WWI) at a time when medical assistance was not as it is today. Probably precisely because of his awareness of the value of lives lost in battle and other acts of violence, Calmeyer was a pacifist if at all possible, and a practical champion of the rights of the innocent, especially the weak, to defend themselves against tyranny.

One potential indicator of the value of life or death is the quality of care (perhaps mostly pain killer treatment) in various countries. The chart below does not tell us anything about which countries try to prolong life through expensive operations, and which ones do not, so the chart placing the UK at the top of the “Quality of Death” list probably indicates in fact that old people may be judged as unworthy of costly treatments and are thus instead more simply drugged, presumably not drugged to death. Reports of the UK health system having draconian “death panels” are quite widespread, so the correlation may be a fact, but that is for others to determine. It is notable below that the Economist talks about the UK being “honest in its assessment of prognoses,” when this is a nice way of saying that they are actually “brutally non-interventionist;”

Thing is, when it comes to 'quality of death' (end of life care), the U.S. is halfway down this list, and Britain takes the top slot.

The Economist:

For all the health-care system’s faults, British doctors tend to be honest about prognoses. The mortally ill get plentiful pain killers. A well-established hospice movement cares for people near death, although only 4% of deaths occur in them. For similar reasons, Australia and New Zealand rank highly too.

China, Russia, Brazil, and India sit near the very bottom of the Economist's 40-nation ranking, mostly due to a lack of respect for 'dignity in death'. Still, if you're sufficiently wealthy then you can probably pay your way to a decent passing anywhere.