A society that doesn’t value human life sees a person as dollars and cents

New Zealand Down Syndrome Association National Achievement Awards on World Down Syndrome Day

Imagine if your value as a person was calculated by a government accountant solely in terms of dollars and cents. Your value to society would be allocated once they substracted your financial input to the government from the cost to the government of allowing you to live.

Euthanasia and abortion have a number of arguments supporting them but one argument that people think about but do not often speak aloud is the savings to society financially of aborting the disabled or sickly and euthanising the elderly. In primitive times sick or disabled babies were left outside to die and the elderly were abandoned when they couldn’t keep up with the tribe. In today’s so-called civilised society are we in danger of reverting to a primitive sense of morality where only the strongest are allowed to survive?

Screenshot from documentary-Whaleoil

In the Netherlands, there was recently an upset when families of children with Down-Syndrome objected to a cost analysis being done on their existence in a documentary. How long will it be before a similar cost analysis is done for how much the ill and the elderly are costing the nation? The next step would then be under new legislation to create a subtle pressure for them to exercise choice and save their families and the nation money by choosing Euthanasia.


If you think that is fanciful bear in mind that mothers of children with Down-Syndrome already report people asking them why they did not abort their children. Already some people view disabled children as having less value and see them as an unnecessary and unwelcome burden on the taxpayer. Once Euthanasia is legal, over time some people will expect the old and sick to stop being a financial drain because that is way easier than actually caring for them.


Statement on health care spending Down syndrome

Recently a tweet containing a video from a Dutch tv-show about Down syndrome caused a lot of turmoil on Twitter. Since the content of the video was taken out of context, we would like to clarify the situation.

The video was part of a tv show called The Last Downer (De Laatste Downer) from the Evangelical Broadcasting service (EO). On twitter it is suggested that RIVM calculates what someone with Down syndrome is costing society or that we put a price tag on human life. This is not the case: the calculation is about actual health care spending and we do this for many conditions, not just Down syndrome.

While their explanation seems reasonable it does single down-syndrome people out and draws attention to their cost on society. This, in turn, will add to the pressure on mothers to abort a down-syndrome child.

Every four years, RIVM calculates the total Dutch healthcare spending per condition or illness. This varies from cancer to dementia, from heart disease to mental illness and from ADHD to diabetes (96 conditions/illnesses in total). The goal of the study is to determine the demands on health care resources caused by condition, age and gender. The data from this study are used to plan for future demand, so the necessary resources for the treatment of specific diseases will be available in time. This way the Netherlands invest in proper health care for everyone, fitting the open and inclusive society we aim to be.[…]



Figures like these will be used to make a case for human beings being both aborted and euthanised because of their financial cost to society. It is not a matter of if but when.


