A Modest Proposal

Take a stroll through one of our city's many extended care facilities and

observe the copious numbers of elderly and infirm that litter the hallways and crowd the bedrooms, occupying valuable space and monopolizing and controlling the full-time attention of numerous highly-trained professionals. In doing so, they become a significant drain upon our entire welfare system, collecting generous pension cheques from the government using money laboriously coerced from the general public, consuming a sizable portion of food three times daily, and becoming, therefore, a general burden upon our already heavily laden society. In addition to the individuals already mentioned, those who are mentally or physically impaired in some way, shape or form only take up valuable time and resources in their efforts to live a semi-functional, barely life-like existence.

I think it can be sufficiently agreed upon by all parties that the numerous amount of sick, elderly, and handicapped persons existing within our fair community is far in excess of our means to support them, and this must in turn create the need for a plausible, humane solution to the overpopulation of the aforementioned personages. To someone who could create such a solution to our most grievous problem would be due no small measure of public adulation and praise.

As for myself, I have been considering this quandary most carefully, and

have thoroughly weighed the various options currently available to us right now. After due consideration, I have arrived at the conclusion that some grievous errors in statistical information have been made, which, if properly corrected, would drastically change the magnitude of the problem we are dealing with. If we consider that Canada is currently home to thirty-two million people, thirty-one percent of these being male, and forty-seven percent being women and children, this leaves the number of elderly and disabled inhabitants of this great nation at a shocking twenty-two percent. Taking into account the aforementioned costs necessary for these poor, infirm and embittered souls, it is clearly evident that our country is investing millions of tax dollars each year into these poor people who are merely awaiting the death that will relieve them of their unalleviated misery. Surveys taken by a very learned friend of mine, Dr. Peter Van Guten of the University of Amsterdam, indicate that the majority of the elderly and mentally challenged people occupying our hospitals, nursing homes and mental institutions have conclusively demonstrated that they are eagerly anticipating the imminent death that will create an escape from the unbearable mental hell that they currently reside in.

My proposal, then, is this: that we create the escape they so dreadfully desire through the use of euthanasia. Euthanasia, or mercy-killing as it is often known as, is just that: the act or practice of terminating the life of someone suffering from a terminal illness or an incurable disease through the use of lethal injection or through suspension of a critical medical treatment. Is this not the greatest form of mercy itself? To give someone their greatest wish and thereby relieve them of their misery? Besides the humaneness of the task, let us not forget the positive benefits gained from this treatment- benefits that would be most agreeable to all of us. An overall lessening of the money needed for taxes- staggering sums of taxpayers' money that only goes towards sustaining our unwilling elderly and disabled- would mean that our level of general taxation would drastically decrease, creating a more stable financial and economical situation for our entire nation. We would also see a large reduction in hospital overcrowding, and there would be an abundance of nurses and doctors available to open new facilities and minimize our waiting time.

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