Prominent Scientists Have Obviously Not Been Watching Soylent Green

Has the whole world gone insane? From the BBC comes this story that indicates further slippage down the slope (emphasis mine):

(Dignitas founder)Ludwig Minelli told the BBC suicide was a "marvellous possibility" and he wants the assisted suicide law clarified for the healthy partners of dying people. (You read that right: dying is awesome, even if you're healthy.)

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In his first broadcast interview for five years, Mr Minelli told BBC Radio 4's The Report that failed suicide attempts created problems and heavy costs for the UK's National Health Service. (Not to mention all that mess- yuck!)

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He added: "Suicide is a very good possibility to escape a situation which you can't alter." (Like parenthood, or taxes?)

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"We are not a clinic. As a human rights lawyer I am opposed to the idea of paternalism. We do not make decisions for other people." (I can only assume that this means he is against abortion.)

And Mr Minelli revealed that his organisation plans to test the legality of assisting the suicide of a healthy woman whose partner is terminally ill.

"There is a couple living in Canada, the husband is ill, his partner is not ill but she told us here in my living room that 'if my husband goes, I would go at the same time with him'. (Hence making death of a 'broken heart' a medical reality).

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Dignitas is known in Britain for having helped more than 100 people to kill themselves.

The majority were terminally ill, but there have been more controversial cases such as psychiatric patients and couples, even when one was less ill than the other. (But hey, they probably thought someone was giving them some candy, so they probably enjoyed it.)

Let me reiterate a point that has become nearly axiomatic in our society: what sounds crazy in Europe today will sound perfectly normal in the United States five years from now.