The Crew

The Crew
Christina, Matthew, Joshua and Katie Grace XiHua

Monday, April 12, 2010

RUSSIAN JOURNALIST CALLS FOR EUTHANASIA OF DISABLED NEWBORNS- APPALLING! Click here to go to video and hear the journalist speak




I came across this article yesterday, and frankly, it made me sick. But I also think it is important to know what some people's mindsets are in the world. Especially if it is a journalist who has a public voice. What does this remind me of? Well, the beginning of the extermination of millions of people in Nazi Germany. To read more about the beautiful adoption of a down's syndrome girl, click on the "Bringing Kellsey Home" button on my sidebar.

Journalist calls for euthanasia of disabled newborns

Published 08 February, 2010, 15:29

Edited 11 March, 2010, 14:08

The article titled “Finish it off so it doesn’t suffer,” which calls for the euthanasia of disabled newborn children, has caused public outrage in Russia and has led to fierce debates in the blogging community.

In the article under question, the author Aleksandr Nikonov argues that the birth of a disabled child for many families would be an unbearable tragedy, “a hell”, and that “the killing of the newborn is in fact the same as an abortion”. He states that depriving infants, who will never be able to take care of themselves, of life is “true humanism”. He also calls to give parents of such children a right to euthanize their newborns, like relatives of patients in a vegetative state can allow doctors to shut down life support.

Read more

The provocative text which described disabled newborns as “defective blanks” and “newborn idiots” naturally caused uproar among people who have mentally-challenged family members as well as human rights activists. The fiercest critics said Nikonov’s ideas paralleled those of the Nazis, who made euthanasia of mentally-ill part of state policy, killing tens of thousands of institutionalized people. Others pointed out that he was plainly wrong in his judgment of how disabled children are treated by their families.

“The author is not raising a disabled child – that is why his generalized conclusions about the life of disabled people and their families… are just speculations. As a mother of a disabled child, and based on my experience, I state that these speculations have nothing to do with the reality,” said Svetlana Shtarkova, who, along with another disabled child’s mother, Snezhana Mitina, has written a letter to the Board of the Union of Russian Journalists.

Following the complaint, the Union of Russian Journalists gathered an ad hoc session of a public board to discuss the article. The board accused the author of the article of breaching professional ethics, adding that he should have realized he was humiliating people who are already bringing up disabled kids. The newspaper where the controversial article was published was also criticized by the board for not presenting any material to balance Nikonov’s piece.

The author disagrees with the criticism and defends his position: “You make people suffer for the sake of ideologies and interpretations of humanism you have in your head. What we offer is choice, and you wrap it inside out, presenting it as if we call for killing of all those disabled people. Nothing like that! We don’t stand against wheel cart ramps or your right to bring up disabled children, we stand for the right to choose,” he told the board.

He says even his original headline read “Commander, finish me to spare the suffering,” is a well-recognized reference to a war-time model scenario, where a wounded soldier asks that he be sacrificed so as not to slow down his retreating squad.

5 comments:

  1. SAD and Disgusted I feel when I read these kind of stories!! Unfortunately there are more people who share his beliefs, we need to change the peoples mind!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh Annie, this is apalling!!!Thank you for sharing although it makes me sick also!!! Thanks for visiting my blog!! BTW.. we will be heading to Disney Dec 5th of this year!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. This breaks my heart. We need to call all Prayer Warriors and PRAY!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This makes me sick. Sadly it does not surprise me. When we were in Russia to pick up my son they told us that they (Russia) consider any imperfection a weakness and they did not want any weakness in their country. So, so sad.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes, I agree! This journalist believes these children don't have a right to live due to their physical imperfections. Meanwhile, he has an internal human imperfection of hate, violence and ignorance, thinking he is a superior being, when all the while, he is of much lower value due to his narrow minded life. His imperfection is much uglier and and more damaging to society than any of these precious children.

    ReplyDelete

Many hungry children near the boarder of Myanmar and Thailand-click on photo