Alzheimer's sufferers 'ought to die'

Briefing.

From SPUC: The medical ethicist who helped lay the foundation for the UK's embryology
law has suggested that dementia sufferers have a duty to die. Baroness Warnock, described as the country's leading moral philosopher, says patients are a drain on national resources. She appears to want assisted suicide and/or euthanasia, including for patients who are not in pain but feel they are burden on others. The Alzheimer's Society was shocked by Lady Warnock's remarks. [Daily Telegraph, 19 September] SPUC has described Baroness Warnock's views as "a regression to the brutal ancient world, when enforced suicide as a punishment was commonplace." [John Smeaton, 19 September] Lady Warnock chaired a committee on human fertilisation and
embryology in the 1980s.