When I woke up this morning I had to check that I hadn’t travelled back in time to Germany circa 1939. No really. I even took a look at the flux capacitor by my bed, just in case I’d hit 88mph in my sleep. Then I realised that it wasn’t me who was in the wrong time and place, it was UKIP council candidate Geoffrey Clark for saying that the NHS needs an urgent review thanks to it “becoming unaffordable in the future”. Oh, and for saying that said review should consider “compulsory abortion when the foetus is detected as having Down’s, spina bifida or similar syndrome which, if it is born, could render the child a burden on the state as well as the family.”
Clark then goes on to say (no one had shot him on sight at this point) that the review should also consider treatment for anyone aged over 80 if it is “disproportionately costly to the NHS” and that this could include “legalising euthanasia and giving free euthanasia advice to all folk over 80”.
For once I barely know where to start. I’ve checked that I’m not living with Mugabe, I’ve checked that I haven’t lost my grasp of the English language and I’ve checked that I’m not a cast member of Logan’s Run and I still can’t get my head around why any rational human being would say something so eye-poppingly horrific.
It’s astounding enough that a particular condition or age should render you disposable. It’s even more astounding that said disposal should be carried out for the purpose of saving money. What in the frig does Clark suggest? That we give 80 year olds one-way tickets to Beachy Head as 80th birthday presents? Or that pregnancy scans include gift packs of knitting needles and gin?
Imagine seeing people with Downs or 80 years of life as little more than burdens on society. What a bleak way to think. It clearly has never crossed Clark’s mind that people with these conditions and ages can live rich, fulfilled and happy and lives. It’s also clearly of no interest to him that these people are surrounded by families who love them, families who do not want them to die just to save the NHS a few fucking bucks.
And imagine what life would be like should Clark have his way. We’d have just-born babies being wrenched from their loving mothers’ arms and destroyed and we’d have grandmothers and grandfathers torn from their children’s arms because they’d reached an unacceptable age. But hey! What the hell! If it saves the NHS a few bob that’s all the consolation and comfort we’d need as we grieved our way through the new regime of eugenics.
And what if Clark gets his way and the NHS does not save enough cash? Perhaps we could drop the Age of Killing to 75, 70, or 65. Or perhaps we could start aborting babies who have cleft palates or a missing finger? Tell you what, why don’t we just go all the way and abort all the babies who aren’t blond, blue-eyed and…oh, wait. It’s been tried already.
Clarke also shows how vile he is by using the word ‘it’, as if babies don’t have genders, they just have sets of organs that may or may not work to their optimal potential. Perhaps he thinks that assigning a baby the term ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ is unduly emotive and likely to cloud the judgement of every sane and lucid human who thinks that he’s talking complete and utter cock.
UKIP says that Clark is no longer a UKIP candidate although he will appear as such on the Kent County Council and Gravesham Borough Council ballot papers. It’s too late though. The HMS Eugenics has set sail and Captain Clark is at the helm. Let’s hope he hits 88 mph and arrives back in 1938 Germany where he firmly belongs.
So what do you think? Does the guy have a point? God knows, do I have a point? I’ll leave it up to you to tell me.
Although in this case, “Don’t shoot the messenger” has a certain ironic direction, the people you need to worry about are the people who were his nominees for election. Unfortunately, behind these arrogant showmen with verbal diarrhoea are the silent grey people who direct and choreograph these morons. These people persist in their shadowy oblivion when candidacies are withdrawn and these drunk/drugged utterances are passed off as misheard or out-of-context. There are people funding this (hopefully approaching 80-year-old) half-wit. Never has the expression “wind him up and let him go” described any party political utterances more completely.
Excellent point, excellently made. He’s not a lone gunman at all, is he? He is being given the leg up by supporters and even though UKIP has now distanced itself from him I’d be very surprised if people who agreed didn’t remain within the ranks.
This shows that UKIP are more than the comedy party some think they are, and just how acceptable the hatred of the disabled is in some quarters.
Quite. And the Tories are making it even worse.
I *almost* felt sorry for UKIP when 2 of their supporters were refused permission to foster children from ethnic minorities. Then this happened and I am right back to hating them again. To even read Clarke’s words makes me feel physically sick.
The party tries to pitch itself as moderate but increasingly it sounds like the BNP in suits.
I am not familiar with the party system in the UK. I am going to say this, tho: To attempt to eliminate the “bothersome” sorts, those unhealthy and less-than-perfect people, is to eliminate a reason for people to learn compassion and how to care for people less able than themselves. My 100 yr old grandmother is bedridden, but the people who care for her learn patience, and how to slow down, and ways to be creative in communicating with her (she’s deaf and blind,but still quite capable mentally), and those skills will be used the next time someone comes around, maybe even my parents, or me. Sure, financially it might be better if she weren’t around, but even that is debatable, given what the rest of us are learning from it.
Well said! It comes to something when those citizens whose bodies don’t work in the same way as others’ are judged by those whose logic, humanity and sequential thinking processes are malfunctioning!
It’s just shocking isn’t it?
Oh Rootie, that is a fabulous point! It’s true isn’t it? That if we eliminate those who need our help, care and support we’ll finally narrow ourselves down to purely functional and efficient humans who exist to perform tasks rather than feel compassion or love. How bloody bleak is that particular thought? God, I’ve gone cold thinking about it.
What???? Actually what? Has the world gone mad? How is that something you’re even allowed to say, like these people aren’t human beings with people to love them and people who they love. They’re not statistics or burdens on the state, they’re real actual people. How can he dismiss them so easily to save a few quid? I’m shocked, didn’t even think UKIP had it in them.
Stupid, stupid man, I work for the NHS and dumping the elderly and wanted babies isn’t going to rectify the budget deficit (though I could rant for weeks on what would!) how unbelievably short-sighted, insensitive and ignorant do you need to be to become a UKIP candidate?
Gawd! That ranks with one of out former Ministers for Health advocating beetroot as a cure for AIDS and our current president’s belief that taking a shower after sex will prevent AIDS. I had to look up UKIP to see what it’s about and it looks as though they hate everything and everybody. But surely such policies would never happen in the UK?
Nah, they wouldn’t happen. What worries me though is that there’s already a bit of a hate campaign going on by the Tories against benefits claimants and the disabled where they are called skivers. Add to that the whole euthanasia debate for Down’s babies and 80 year olds and it starts to get a bit ugly.