As individuals and nations rapidly advance along a path completely divorced from reality, how human life is understood and valued is becoming increasingly apparent as calls emerge to murder those who are deemed a hindrance.
This has been evidenced for decades now by the practice of abortion. Country after country has fallen prey to the ideology that unborn babies need to be slaughtered to somehow bring happiness, personal freedom, or fulfillment to men and women in society. Indeed, if a nation allows its citizens to dismember and murder their unborn at will, then it cannot be described in any other manner than being in a moral decline—a free fall.
Yet, as if the relentless murder of the unborn was not enough, those resolved on advancing the culture of death have turned their sights in recent years to the elderly. The old and infirm apparently now merit the same description as the murdered unborn—they are deemed annoying, without any purpose, a drain on resources, and ultimately are in the way. These keywords form the ideological groundwork of each and every argument by which activists propose new ways to advance euthanasia or assisted suicide.
Mass Suicide for the Elderly
A recent case that has shocked those who still value human life is that of the 37-year-old Japanese man Yusuke Narita. Narita is an assistant professor of economics at Yale University, a position he has held since 2013. Recently, comments he made in a 2021 video interview resurfaced online, which led to Narita earning media infamy overnight.
Responding to a question about how to handle Japan’s demographic issues, Dr. Narita stated: “I feel like the only solution is pretty clear. In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass’ seppuku’ of the elderly?” Seppuku is the brutal custom of ritual suicide of disemboweling followed by decapitation. Born out of samurai practice, ritual suicide was deemed more honorable than allowing oneself to be defeated in battle and thus fall into the hands of enemies. The practice is more widely known as harikari.
But this was not the only instance in which the Yale-based academic advocated for eugenicist policies. In a different lecture to school students delivered last year, Narita expanded on his euthanasia ideas. He referred to the 2019 Swedish horror film “Midsommar,” in which members of a Swedish cult commit suicide by jumping off a cliff. The cult members committed suicide at age 72, believing it to be an honor.
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“Whether that’s a good thing or not, that’s a more difficult question to answer,” said Dr. Narita. “So if you think that’s good, then maybe you can work hard toward creating a society like that.”
A third instance involved the academic raising the possibility of mandatory suicide in the future—an eventuality appearing to echo the Swedish horror film. “The possibility of making it mandatory in the future” will “come up in discussion,” he said in another interview.
As noted by the New York Times, while Dr. Narita has passed relatively un-noticed in the U.S. until now, he has amassed a large following among Japanese nationals and has nearly 600,000 followers on Twitter. Writing in NewsWeek Japan, columnist Masato Fujisaki noted that Narita’s comments could not be ignored as merely deluded ravings.
“This statement should not be easily viewed as ‘metaphor,’” wrote Fujisaki. “What is more serious is the fact that his comments have been accepted by the other performers of the program who are present at the event,” and not only were Dr. Narita’s comments welcomed by the interviewers, but they represented a growing trend of thought in Japan. “More and more people have a desire to cut off those who may be a burden or a burden to them,” wrote Fujisaki.
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Following the media storm surrounding his comments, the Yale academic attempted to backtrack somewhat, informing the New York Times that the terms “mass suicide” and “mass seppuku” were just “an abstract metaphor.” “I should have been more careful about their potential negative connotations,” he stated. “After some self-reflection, I stopped using the words last year.”
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Dr. Narita’s arguments strike as particularly egregious. In advocating for his elders to commit suicide to somehow make life easier for the younger generations, he demonstrates a total rejection of any value or dignity of human life. His arguments work from the premise that life is a commodity with no worth of its own and no importance greater than any other item which can be purchased and later disregarded.
Indeed, they also highlight how society has changed in recent decades. While young, able-bodied men voluntarily went off to fight in the Second World War to protect their elders and families, now that same age group is requesting they be prioritized above all others.
Perhaps they should not be surprising in light of the widespread devotion that modern society now has for abortion, which is the murder of the unborn. In fact, the promotion of euthanasia appears as the logical consequence of this abortion promotion, since by disregarding the value of unborn, ‘unseen’ human life, it is only a matter of time before society begs to lose respect for those who are born and can be seen.
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Just as killing an innocent unborn baby is presented as a way to remove a ‘problem,’ so also is euthanasia presented as a way to solve various issues in society. As the rejection of religion and belief in God becomes ever more prevalent, and people view life as something to be enjoyed above all, the meaning of life and death lose their significance. Into this warped view of reality, Dr. Narita’s argument thus appears. It is the nihilistic but perhaps predictable result of the belief that life holds no value and is something to be devoted only to pleasure.
Killing as an Answer to Problems
Resorting to the murder of one’s fellow man is no novel development. It has been a temptation ever since the fall of Man in the Garden of Eden, evidenced by the murder of Abel by his brother Cain. The murder of the innocent young is also evidenced in the annals of history. Yet never before has there been such a paradox as is found today: modern society posits itself as the most advanced and yet is, in fact, the most backward due to its rejection of fundamental truths such as the existence of God and the consequent meaning of life.
Mr. Alex Schadenburg, the co-founder and executive director of Canada’s Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, noted that euthanasia rests on the argument that killing the innocent is a “solution to human problems.”
“The problem with euthanasia is that it creates a scenario whereby killing people is a solution to human problems,” he commented to this author. “In most jurisdictions, euthanasia is sold as a way to eliminate suffering, whether it be a painful death or chronic and psychological issues.”
“Narita is proposing euthanasia as a way to deal with the demographic winter, the economic and social issues that will result from the looming demographic crisis of having too many more elderly people in relation to the number of young people within a culture,” said Schadenburg, who has campaigned against euthanasia for over 25 years.
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He noted that Japan’s demographic crisis is not isolated but is similar to that “looming in most Western nations.”
Pointing to Canada’s euthanasia (MAiD) law, he observed how “when killing becomes a solution to human problems..it becomes a utilitarian answer to other problems.” The arguments used to implement euthanasia originally soon changed to become much more free and easy, resulting in increased euthanasia rates.
In Canada, it was sold to the culture as a way to offer a “peaceful death” for people who are terminally ill, and it resulted in killing as an “answer” for people with disabilities and elderly people who are poor, experiencing homelessness or having difficulty obtaining medical treatment. In Canada, we crossed a clear line in the sand by approving killing as a solution to one problem, and then it was extended to many problems.
Such a situation, warned Schadenburg, was likely to happen in Japan if Dr. Narita’s suggestions were acted upon: “If Japan were to legalize euthanasia to encourage people to ‘choose’ an early death, based on the demographic crisis, once culturally accepted, it would become a tool for ending the lives of elderly people, especially those with disabilities, who are poor, homeless or having difficulty obtaining medical treatment. It would lead to culling the weak in society.”
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