In the October 28th issue of the Bennington Banner, a column by a Bob Stannard, identified only as coming from Manchester VT, actually accuses opponents of assisted suicide (misidentified as “death with dignity”) of contributing to overpopulation. Even leaving aside the irony of this article’s running in a small-town newspaper the same week the Washington Post ran a piece about how the really scary thing is the decline in the fertility of developed countries to below the replacement rate, it is amazing that anyone would think of openly advocating people’s killing themselves as a solution to any societal problem. According to Stannard’s reasoning, some suicides are good for society. Can Stannard’s problem-solving skills actually be that poor? Can our state’s? Vermont can do better than that.
Links: Bennington Banner Article: http://www.benningtonbanner.com/opinion/ci_19219573
Washington Post Article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/world-population-not-only-grows-but-grows-old/2011/10/25/gIQAdt17VM_story.html?hpid=z3