A (very) Modest Proposal

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A Modest Proposal

FOR PROVIDING SWIFT RELIEF TO THOSE BURDENED BY DISABILITIES OR AGE, AND FOR LESSENING THE BURDEN THAT IS PLACED UPON OUR SOCIETY BY THE AFOREMENTIONED PERSONS.

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.

For those who might, for some inconceivable reason, object to the solution I
have proposed, let them not talk to me of any other resolutions: of making it necessary that aged parents should live with their own children- for perish the thought that these same parents, who poured their lives into raising and nurturing their children, should have the same courtesy bestowed upon them by their offspring. Likewise, it would be almost as absurd to believe that those with disabilities should perhaps live in community homes with four or five others, there to pursue such games and entertainments that they are capable of understanding, towards the end of creating a loving, homelike environment as opposed to a cold, one hundred percent hygienic one. To any man who might object to my methods, I would ask him to speak no more to me on this subject unless he is prepared to defend, with reasonable proof, that there is the slightest indication of any fervent and genuine effort to put these alternative proposals in motion.

To any who might dare question me beyond this point, I would ask them this:
we cloister our dying or handicapped relatives and friends away in institutions, and
they spend the remainder of their lives in a miserable, prison-like existence. We make the obligatory few visits a year to them, and then contentedly feel that we have done our duty by these poor souls, and that they will comfortably enjoy life in an institutionalised, cold, unfeeling and sterile world. Would you like to live like that? What human being, possessing some portion of their faculties, would not go insane when locked up like a criminal? And for what crime? The crime of being old or being born with mental deficiencies? For almost all of these people, this is a living hell. By providing them with the opportunity to end their own lives through physician-administered lethal injection, or through the indefinite postponement of a medical treatment, we are in fact handing them the key to freedom. They do not have to unlock the door if they do not wish to, but we feel confident that, when given the proper guidance and instruction, they will choose mercy killing over a living, mentally torturous death.

I swear to you this day that I have no ulterior motive for proposing and promoting this very necessary work, and, though I have no relatives or friends in the situations previously mentioned, I’m confident that, fully sympathetic towards the plight of these poor wretches, I have arrived at a humane, perfectly agreeable solution for everyone involved.



***This piece of writing is modelled after Jonathon Swift's "A Modest Proposal", and was my first attempt at creating a satire. Originally a project several years ago in a high school english class, I decided to post it for lack of anything better to post at the current moment. All data and references to persons are purely fictional and are used only to lend credibility to the proposal being presented.

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