Age Concern's bogus debate

WHAT Is THE ATTITUDE of the organisation Age Concern to the issue of euthanasia? Is it for it, against it, or simply neutral? This is a question of some importance, since as a lobbying organisation for the elderly, its activities are axiomatically taken to be in their interests.
Before addressing this question it is important to say that local Age Concern groups are autonomous, and that local volunteers may well be ignorant about many of the activities of head office. It is also important to dissociate this body from others, such as Help the Aged, who very effectively do precisely that — in other words they really do give practical help to old people.
Age Concern is more political in its aims, so it is important to know just what its driving ideology is. The organisation operates on a national level as Age Concern England, Age Concern Scotland and so on. It is, however, currently conducting a UK-wide "Debate of the Age", subtitled "Your say in the future", and based on several "facilitating documents". One of these is entitled "Values and Attitudes in an Ageing Society" which sets out the opposing views on the question of euthanasia in a supposedly neutral fashion.
On another page, Simon Caldwell asks what we can deduce about the aims of this exercise from the background of the personalities principally involved. His conclusion is clear enough: those conducting the "debate of the age" on euthanasia (despite the claims of at least one of them to be neutral) themselves believe that euthanasia should be available on demand.
And the fact is that "Values and Attitudes in an Ageing Society" is far from neutral either, despite being flagged up as a merely "facilitating" document. Its purpose is emphatically not to foster a "debate" : it is, on the contrary (however skilfully it may have been dressed up) part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to change the law in a permissive direction.
One of its aims, hardly disguised, is to destroy any influence still wielded by opponents of euthanasia. Hence, a lengthy and overtly hostile analysis of the religious arguments against euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) ends with an unapologetically anti-religious rant, accusing religious people, in effect, of undemocratically seeking to impose their own views on others (shades of the Inquisition). "Few people in liberal democratic societies", the document argues, "would think it legitimate for a particular religious perspective to dominate in the wider policymaking process. Opponents of both voluntary euthanasia and PAS consistently fail to address this point when they seek to 'impose on others, through legal means, their own particular moral or religious perspective' ."
The argument is skilfully made: few members of a public unaccustomed to such issues will reflect that we do not now, nor have we ever, believed in a society in which everyone's particular moral perspec tive is somehow accommodated. Nor, it needs to be insisted, has any such society ever existed: it would hardly be a society if it did.
Societies define themselves in many ways, and one of them is in what they do not pennit We do not, for instance, permit infanticide. There are, however, in our plural society, those who think that we should: one of them, it is worth noting in passing, is Professor John Harris, chairman of the committee which drafted "Values and Attitudes in an Ageing society" (he is also in favour of abortion and the use of foetal tissue). The point is that if ever the law does permit the infanticide of the unfit, we will have become a different kind of society, one in which the concept of the sanctity of human life has been finally destroyed as a core value.
The same is true of euthanasia. It is, surely, profoundly significant that the sanc tity of human life itself has been singled out as one of the specific targets for its underlying strategy of assailing the very notion of objective moral values. All moral values are seen as essentially relative by those animating the Age Concern campaign: that certainly includes the sanctity of human life (a value passionately rediscovered in the aftermath of the holocaust, but now once more under attack).
Thus, argrunents invoking the sanctity of human life are countered by the notion that we all have our own views about what is sacred, and by key-phrases carefully designed to discredit opponents of euthana sia as being insensitive and legalistic in their thinking (rather than being animated by principles which go deeper than some mere knee-jerk reaction.) Thus, we read that "Religious opponents of euthanasia and PAS are wedded to a particular view about the value of human life, according to which, respecting patient autonomy is not as important as respecting a blanket prohibition against intentional killing".
The important thing to note in the short term is that the supporters of euthanasia are on the march: and that the guiding spirits of Age Concern appear to be among them. Those who in local branches and affiliated organisations take a different view should be aware of what they are supporting and act accordingly.