A few days ago, Senate Bill 494 was passed by the Oregon Senate Rules Committee. Hidden in the bill is the central goal: allowing patients with mental illness or dementia to die of starvation or dehydration legally. It is being presented as a “simple update” to Oregon medical law.

When patients who can’t coherently speak for themselves are a liability to the medical system, they are taken advantage of. Being allowed to die in a painful way for profit is the ultimate way to be taken advantage of.

According to Life News:

“Senate Bill 494 is little more than the state colluding with the healthcare industry to save money on the backs of mentally ill and dementia patients. This bill would remove current safeguards in Oregon’s advance directive statute that protect conscious patients’ access to ordinary food and water when they no longer have the ability to make decisions about their own care.”

“It’s appalling what the Senate Rules Committee just voted to do,” said Oregon Right to Life executive director Gayle Atteberry. “This bill, written in a deceiving manner, has as its goal to save money at the expense of starving and dehydrating dementia and mentally ill patients to death,” he continued.

“Oregon law currently has strong safeguards to protect patients who are no longer able to make decisions for themselves,” Atteberry said. “Nursing homes and other organizations dedicated to protecting vulnerable patients work hard to make sure patients receive the food and water they need. Senate Bill 494, pushed hard by the insurance lobby, would take patient care a step backwards and decimate patient rights.”

“Oregon Right to Life is committed to fighting this terrible legislation every step of the way,” said Atteberry. “We have already seen the outrage of countless Oregonians that the Legislature would consider putting them in danger. We expect the grassroots response to only increase.”

“There is a clear effort to move state policy away from protecting the rights of patients with dementia and mental illness and toward empowering surrogates to make life-ending decisions,” he continued.

This is reminiscent of the Euthanasia Society of America of the early- mid 20th Century, and the eugenics movement of the United States and Europe: that is a clue about what this really means.

A formula for consolidating control over people, especially medically, is being put into action. Disposing of people considered useless is a symptom of the slow crawl of tyranny, for this stage of societal decay: lack of value for human life is formulaically part of the decay of society.

Like the fall of past empires, the erosion of empathy indicates a period of decline for a society that has used worthless federal reserve notes backed by war and petroleum to consume past the point of reason. No empathy, decadence, bread and circuses: it’s the decay of society.

For some background information on where this could be headed, this video provides some historical context.

(Image credit: OpenClipArt, RapGenius)