The worldview of modern science . . . sees health not only as a foundation but also a principal goal, not only as a beginning but also an end. Relief and preservation�from disease and pain, from misery and necessity�become the defining ends of human action, and therefore of human societies.
This article from the journal FIRST THINGS written by Wesley J Smith points clearly to the up-side-down application of ethics and behaviour in a country that is becoming increasingly more famous for death tourism.
In 2008, bioethicist Yuval Levin in his book Imagining the Future: Science and American Democracy identified a subtle but momentous shift in the philosophical driver of the West:
At first blush, this seems a minor matter. Who doesn't want to alleviate suffering and promote the general welfare? But read the above quote again. That reasonable approach to the problem of suffering is not the attitude Levin describes.
Rather, it seems to me that he detected a fundamental paradigm shift driving us away from the reasonable mitigation of suffering in favor of a Utopian—and ultimately dangerous—eliminationquest that threatens the unique dignity of man and relativizes the importance of human life.
Consider: When eliminating suffering becomes the "defining ends of human action," it easily transforms into eliminating the sufferer. Perhaps more insidiously, what constitutes suffering encompasses more things—even becoming projected and anthropomorphized onto the natural world.
This is all very difficult to describe clearly in a short essay. So, allow me to illustrate what I am getting at by focusing on the surreal policies of Switzerland. Swiss law has permitted assisted suicide since 1942 so long as the assister does not have "selfish motives." For decades, nothing much came of it. But with the emergence of the (sufferer-elimination) euthanasia movement, the country Kevorkianized, resulting in the establishment of suicide clinics to which people attend from around the world.
You can read the full article HERE:
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