Category Archives: Euthanasia

The most unnerving thing about Plan 75, the debut feature from Japanese filmmaker Chie Hayakawa, is that the dystopian future it presents doesnt seem futuristic at all. This is as true for the films mise en scne as it is for its premise.

Theres no comfort to be taken, for instance, in city-states that have been reimagined as gleaming high-tech playlands or blighted urban hell-scapes. We are far removed from either Logans Run or Soylent Green, iconic 1970s movies that Plan 75 brings to mind. What the picture does share with these two schlock masterpieces is summed up in the title: an agenda and time.

In Logans Run, youll recall, an Edenic world is built upon a duplicitous conceit the mandatory murder of its citizens upon their reaching 30 years of age. Utopia, in distinct contrast, is unimaginable in Soylent Green, wherein New York City in the year 2022 yes, that particular sell-by date has passed is lacking in space and food. As a consequence, senior citizens can opt for a trip to the Thanatorium, an assisted suicide clinic run by the government.

The Japan we see in Plan 75 is rather ordinary, if considerably dour: Cinematographer Hideho Urata swathes almost the entirety of the movie in a steely gray. Overpopulation has become so dire that the government has instituted a voluntary program, Plan 75, that allows seniors to end their own lives for the greater good.

Current-day Japan does have one of the oldest populations in the world and the government, with an eye on trimming budgetary fat, has encouraged delayed retirement for its seniors. When Ms. Hayakawa was doing research for her film, she floated its premise to a group of elderly women from various social strata. To a person, each respondent said that if a Plan 75 did exist, they would submit to it in order not to be a burden to their families and to the culture at large.

Another unnerving aspect of Ms. Hayakawas film is the business-as-usual quality of the imagined bureaucracy that deals with government-sanctioned euthanasia. The advertising, the outreach, the incentives, and the amiable young people manning the front desks and working the phone lines the professionalization of death is given a benign face. There is nothing that cant be marketed in a positive light. A dour strain of satire wheedles its way through Plan 75.

At the center of the film is Michi (Chieko Baish), a 78-year-old woman who has lost her job, received notice that her home will soon be undergoing demolition, and whose best friend recently died. Having little in the way of savings and no family, Michi begins to waver on Plan 75, an option she has previously resisted entertaining. Alongside Michis travails, we follow two younger characters: Himoru (Hayato Isomura), a recruiting agent who begins to doubt the moral basis of government-sponsored euthanasia, and Maria (Stephanie Arianne), a young Filipino care-giver eager to make some extra income to take care of her sick daughter.

Over the run of Plan 75, Ms. Hayakawa proves adept at composition and eliciting nuanced performances from her cast, but is somewhat iffier as a storyteller. The shape of the film proves unwieldy, as the three separate plot lines are allowed to meander too long before they begin to hint at a common dramatic purpose. By the time we reach the denouement, the picture has fizzled in momentum.

An editor with a firmer hand mightve righted this ship. In the meantime, Plan 75 touches upon a bevy of home truths with enough deftness to make it worth your while.

Mr. Naves is an artist, teacher and critic based in New York City. His writing has appeared in City Arts, The New Criterion,The New York Observer, Slate, The Spectator World, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.

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Is Government-Sanctioned Euthanasia Really That Far-Fetched? - The New York Sun

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Last week, it was reported that chief executives of community health programs in Victoria were phoned by government bureaucrats to warn them that they should brace for funding cuts of up to 15 per cent.

Violet Platt, the CEO of Palliative Care Victoria, told 7News that in the next ten years, there will be a 50 per cent increase in the need for palliative care and that funds are needed now to grow the specialist workforce that they will need to cater to this need going forward. Instead of more money, they will likely receive less. Platt also said that Palliative Care Victoria has had a shortfall in funding year-on-year for at least the last five years.

Is it a coincidence that the states euthanasia and assisted suicide were passed five years ago? Is it just blind chance that the year-on-year shortfall in palliative care funding coincided with the passage of these deathly laws? Will the parliamentary review of the euthanasia and assisted suicide laws, due to begin in June, give us the answer?

I doubt it will. Instead, we can expect that those who are pushing the euthanasia and assisted suicide bandwagon will advocate for further loosening of the laws to allow even more people access to lethal drugs.

We are already hearing the list of demands from activists.

They want to remove the requirement that a specialist in a patients condition be one of the doctors who signs off on their death. Instead, they want to allow even those with no expertise in a patients illness to be able to give them a terminal diagnosis and prescribe the lethal medication.

They also want to let these doctors be able to do it all by telehealth, so that they dont ever need to meet or physically examine a patient before approving their access to lethal meds. They want doctors to be able to suggest euthanasia to patients, ignoring the power imbalance between doctor and patient, and they want to scrap the idea that a patient should only have 6 months to live before being able to take their own lives, replacing it with any time after they receive a terminal diagnosis (even if they could live for years.)

Any one of these changes would guarantee that more people would be eligible for euthanasia and assisted suicide. All of them together would see the number killed each year expand significantly. The troubling thing is, though, that the program is already expanding at an exponential rate.

More than 600 people died in the first three years of the laws being in operation, which is more than double the number of deaths Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews anticipated would have occurred by now.

The small amount of information available shows the death rates are increasing. There were 131 euthanasia and assisted suicide deaths in the first year the laws came into effect and 269 deaths in its third year, an increase of more than 100 per cent in just three short years.

To put these numbers in perspective, the 269 euthanasia and assisted suicide deaths that occurred in Victoria in the 2021-2022 financial year is higher than the number of deaths that have occurred in any single year in Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1997. Victoria is already on track to double Oregons average annual number of deaths, despite the whole process being relatively new.

Rather than question why the number of deaths is already so high, I am certain that the review will make all the recommendations above and more ensuring that the death rate rises even higher.

It would be wonderful if we could trust that the parliamentary inquiry would take its focus off the activists and instead ask serious questions about palliative care availability and funding, and how a lack in each of these removes end-of-life choice for the terminally ill, but I am not that nave.

The horrible truth is that euthanasia and assisted suicide are budget-saving measures. Health care is expensive and health care at the end of life is the most expensive of all. Expanding the categories of eligibility not only appeases the death on demand activists, it saves money while being couched in language of compassion.

A good test for compassion, though, is whether it costs anything. A person (or a government) that claims to be acting out of compassion while saving themselves time, money and the need to strengthen the medical and palliative care workforce probably has a different motivation.

Compassion costs. Euthanasia doesnt.

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Victoria's rising euthanasia rate shows governments won't bear the ... - The Catholic Weekly

Ailing elephant increases her food intake, says zoo officials Four Paws team due to arrive next week

KARACHI: Although ailing elephant Noor Jehan has increased her food intake over the past two days, her worsening health complications have forced experts to look into the option of putting her down, it emerged on Wednesday.

Sources said the 17-year-old African elephant had developed skin lesions, apparently due to the cranes belts and ropes used to change her position twice a day.

The poor animal had been lying on the ground since her collapse in her enclosure after she was lifted out of the pond in which she reportedly fell a week back.

Her skin lesions are being treated while a team is preparing a soft harness best suited to her needs, an official told Dawn.

Noor Jehan, he said, had been showing positive signals over the past two days.

We had lost all hopes but her positive response in the last two days has once again raised our hopes. She has increased her food intake from around 12kg and 15kg to 40 kg in a day and is passing out stool and urine, he said, adding that she also moved her legs when lifted for changing her position.

Noor Jehan underwent complex diagnostic procedure early this month and was found to have a large haematoma in her abdomen and ruptured pelvic membrane. She collapsed days later and has since lain stricken on its side.

Currently, the zoo administration is anxiously waiting for the arrival of Four Paws, the international animal welfare group supervising the elephants treatment process.

The team is due to arrive on Monday morning.

Noor Jehans condition is getting complicated every passing day. The team on site doesnt have the experience and equipment to handle this extraordinary situation, said Dr Amir Khalil representing the animal welfare group.

He regretted that its not possible for the team to reach early as it had prior commitments and was currently engaged, attending to the needs of animals suffering in different parts of the world.

All experts including the on-site team have already given Noor Jehan a chance and her recovery chances were high following diagnosis and treatment a few weeks back. Its sad that she seems to be losing the opportunity after that accident [her fall in the pond].

The sources said the nine-member team recently set up by Karachi Metropolitan Corporation would weigh in all options including that of euthanasia.

We will fight till the end for her recovery, and the rest is in the hands of Allah. We are diligently following Four Paws instructions for treatment. She is still eating despite being on her side, pin-pricked by drips and regularly doused with water to cool her down, Karachi Zoo director Kanwar Ayub said when asked about euthanizing Noor Jehan.

It might be recalled that Noor Jehan had been in pain and misery for over four months and the KMC sought assistance from the NGO after her plight was highlighted in the media.

In August last year, the foreign experts performed major tusk surgeries on Noor Jehan and Madhubala, the other female elephant. This step followed intervention of the Sindh High Court, which was approached by the Pakistan Animal Welfare Society (Paws) and activists worried over animal plight.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2023

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Experts looking into option of euthanasia for Noor Jehan - DAWN.com

Philadelphias only animal care and control provider, which also handles the intake of animals, said dozens of dogs are at risk of euthanasia as the facility struggles to manage the spread of canine flu and pneumovirus, a respiratory illness that has spread rapidly in shelters in recent months.

The shelter, ACCT Philly, said it has to create a second shelter to temporarily house dogs exposed to canine flu for up to a month in order to limit further spread. Shelter operators consulted with disease control experts and found the infected animals will need to be separated from incoming dogs for up to 30 days to lower risk.

However, with an average of 100 dogs entering the shelter weekly, ACCT Philly said it is not able to close its doors because no other organization is capable of absorbing the influx.

The nonprofit said it is housing 120 dogs, and with a temporary space only able to accommodate 50 dogs, at least 70 of them are at risk of being put down.

There is no good time to do something like this, but unfortunately with the number of dogs who are getting sick, we dont have a humane alternative, Sarah Barnett, ACCT Phills executive director, said in a release. We continue to be here for the animals most in need in Philadelphia, and while this will be very challenging to pull off, we hope that the community will support us and help make this successful.

Barnett said volunteers to adopt a dog or foster a large dog for a month are desperately needed. If not, she called on the community for donations.

We are the only organization open 365 days a year 24/7, helping almost 16,000 animals each year, and we can only do so with the communitys investment, Barnett said.

Individuals can sign up to foster or adopt a large dog.

All adoption fees are waived for dogs over 40 pounds until April 23, and people who can foster large dogs will receive a $400 Visa gift card at the end of the month.

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More than 70 dogs in PA at risk of euthanasia by next week amid canine flu outbreak - SILive.com

Various attempts have previously been made to implement legislation that would legalise doctor-led euthanasia; it is undeniable that such reform must be introduced in contemporary politics. At present, assisted dying in England and Wales is deemed illegal under the Suicide Act of 1961. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe defines euthanasia as an act intended to end a patients life at his or her persistent, carefully considered and voluntary request in order to relieve unbearable suffering. Support for lifting the ban on euthanasia has never been more prominent; it stems not only from 88% of the general public, but additionally from judicial authorities, the Medical Council as well as the Parliament itself.

A governing argument for such reform is that of personal autonomy, which is often balanced against the sanctity of life; arguing that without autonomy, a persons morality diminishes. Additionally, many prominent individuals believe that the right to life, provided in Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, extends to the right to die. Human Rights arguments are raised, claiming that reforms similar to those made in Canada, Switzerland and the USA are necessary. Alternatively, it can be argued that the legalisation of euthanasia violates the states obligation to preserve life. Furthermore, such modification would create a slippery slope effect that would lead to the acceptance of severely immoral medical practices.

Nonetheless, the principle of personal autonomy must prevail in future legal reforms. Advocates for autonomous decisions raise the argument that respect for personal autonomy is one of the fundamental principles of medicinal practice, a concept that enables a mentally competent individual to act independently. The contemporary concept of autonomy is predominantly characterised by the efforts of John Stewart Mill, who implied that autonomy must be viewed as a prudential value; something that benefits an individual and compliments their life. To overlook an individuals personal choices would be to violate their dignity, it is an unconditional value that ensures that a person maintains a good quality of life. Its ignorance could potentially lead to mental distress and severe physical discomfort, not only for the individual, but also for their relatives.

It is important to consider that it is still a widely held belief that the sanctity of life must be protected, however, the term is derived from ancient times, back when it was impossible for an individual to be sustained by life support machines. Additionally, the possibility of a slippery slope is problematic, however, it must be remembered that such a possibility comes hand in hand with every systematic development. Though this does not automatically mean that the advancements proceeding the development of euthanasia will be immoral.

Multiple attempts have been constructed to change the legal situation regarding assisted suicide in the United Kingdom, dating back to the year 1931, during which Killick Millard proposed a Voluntary Euthanasia Bill. The most recent bill aimed at proposing a legal framework to legalise euthanasia was rejected by the House of Lords in October 2021.

In conclusion, it is an alarming infringement of a persons right to experience a life of intolerable pain and mental distress whilst there are medical professionals who are willing to assist them with euthanasia. The fundamental rights of every natural person, namely, liberty and personal autonomy are violated by the current law surrounding euthanasia in the United Kingdom. It is now time for the Parliament to introduce a reform which, unlike the previous attempts, will withstand the opposition within the House of Lords.

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Death Upon Request: Euthanasia and Assisted-Suicide - The Speaker

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) When your family pet dies, you likely work through your veterinarian on a cremation plan or head to the backyard to find a final resting place. But when the local zoo loses a resident, the next steps can be a little more secretive.

Early in April 2023, the Sioux Falls Great Plains Zoo (GPZ) announced the death of an Arctic Fox named Rehn, who was humanely euthanized following a losing battle with kidney disease.

Great Planes Zoo President and CEO Becky Dewitz says death is part of the whole-life care process at many accredited zoos. The GPZs accreditation comes from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).

It is the highest standard as it applies to animal welfare and wellbeing of any of the accrediting agencies in the zoo and aquarium business, Dewitz said. As an accredited zoo, we are required to have an internal process that measures the animals welfare on a state of good to bad on a continuum of life.

Most zoo animals these days are born in captivity, Dewitz says, the result of dedicated breeding programs rather than capturing them in the wild.

That may have been something that occurred quite a long time ago, she said, but it is not a practice that occurs today.

These managed breeding programs allow zoos to operate as what Dewitz called a living arc. The programs take into account the genetics of individual animals to make sure that good genetics are maintained in offspring in order to best supply reintroduction and conservation programs from endangered and at-risk species.

Dewitz said that generally speaking, zoo animals tend to live about twice as long as their counterparts in the wild, with the most common causes of death being conditions brought on by old age.

We give them great food, they have good veterinarian care there are no predators for them to be predated on in the zoo also not the illegal wildlife and poaching activities that are affecting wild populations, she said.

When the quality of life for an animal falls below a certain threshold, the choice is made to humanely euthanize them, a process through which euthanasia chemicals are used to end the animals life once they have been sedated.

After an animal dies, a necropsy is done to determine a specific cause of death to list beyond simply euthanasia, and the results are added to the animals permanent file.

Once this testing is completed, the remains of the animal are cremated.

Cremation is the chosen method for a very specific reason in the zoological industry. The process for an Arctic fox is likely to be similar to that for a 72-year-old elephant, based on 2020 reporting from the Washington Post.

We have a lot of protected species we take care of, Dewitz explained. We would not want anybody to have access to any animal parts of a protected animal that could be problematic.

Dewitz mentions tigers as a specific example of a species for which this type of action is needed.

Even its claws and fur and whiskers are considered protected, so its our obligation to make sure that those animal remains do not go into hands where they shouldnt.

This requirement, while it is part of the accreditation process, actually goes back to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Endangered Species and Animal Welfare Acts.

There is a good deal of secrecy in the actual process through which the remains of animals are disposed of, which includes the actual facilities in which they are cremated, should that process have to happen outside the confines of the zoo.

Dewitz noted that some zoos may choose to bury some animals rather than cremate them, but they probably have very secret locations where theyre buried.

Even the way in which the cremated remains of an animal are interred is kept closely guarded. Its just disposed, Dewitz said quietly.

Some zoos might do taxidermy, Dewitz said. I would say its more uncommon, but if there is some type of educational value in the remains, they may want to consider that. Ive seen some zoos do skeletal mounts, which is really great for scientific studies at university levels.

Dignity is something that zoos seek to maintain for their animals, both in life and after death.

The staff at the zoo grow connected to these creatures, so much so that Dewitz told us her zoo has actually offered grief counseling for employees after particularly difficult deaths.

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What happens to animals who die at the zoo? - WGN TV Chicago

Paglia pointed to Pope Francis decision in 2018 to revise the Catechism of the Catholic Church to state that the death penalty is inadmissible.

The contribution of Christians is made within the different cultures, neither above as if they possessed an a priori given truth nor below as if believers were the bearers of a respectable opinion, but disengaged from history, Paglia continued.

Between believers and non-believers there is a relationship of mutual learning, Paglia said.

As believers, therefore, we ask the same questions that concern everyone, in the knowledge that we are in a pluralistic democratic society. In this case, about the end of (earthly) life, we find ourselves all facing a common question: How can we reach (together) the best way to articulate the good (ethical plane) and the just (legal plane), for each person and for society?

Paglia criticized the expansion of laws in some countries to permit involuntary euthanasia. At the same time, he said it was not to be ruled out that legalized assisted suicide is feasible in our society, provided certain conditions spelled out by a 2019 Italian constitutional court ruling are met.

Specifically, he said, quoting from the courts direction, the person must be kept alive by life-support treatment and suffering from an irreversible pathology, a source of physical or psychological suffering that he or she considers intolerable, but fully capable of making free and conscious decisions." The Italian House of Representatives has already approved such legislation, but not the Senate, he noted.

This is not the first time Paglias remarks on assisted suicide have stirred controversy. In 2019, answering a question about assisted suicide and whether a Catholic or a Catholic priest can be present at someone's death by assisted suicide, Paglia told a small group of journalists that he would be willing to do so, because "the Lord never abandons anyone."

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BREAKING: Pontifical Academy of Life president calls medically assisted suicide feasible - Catholic News Agency

My first attempt to kill myself was when I was a child. I tried again as a teenager; as an adult, Ive attempted suicide repeatedly and in a variety of ways. And yet, as a 55-year-old white man (a member of one of the groups at the highest risk for suicide in America) and the happily married father of five children, I am thankful that I am incompetent at killing myself.

I believe that almost every suicide can be prevented, including my own, with access to good behavioral health systems. I have talked many, many people off the ledge.

I am a Canadian, where eligible adults have had the legal right to request medical assistance in dying (MAID) since June 2016. Acceptance of MAID has been spreading, and it is now legal in almost a dozen countries and 10 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. To my mind, this is moral progress: When a person is in unbearable physical agony, suffering from a terminal disease, and death is near, surely it is compassionate to help end the pain, if the person so chooses.

But a debate has arisen in Canada because the law was written to include those living with severe, incurable mental illness. This part of the law was meant to take effect this year but was recently postponed until 2024.

Many people who want to end their lives because of intense mental suffering find themselves grateful for their lives once the suicidal moment or attempt has passed. As Ken Baldwin, who survived a suicide attempt by leaping off the Golden Gate Bridge, famously remarked, I instantly realized that everything in my life that Id thought was unfixable was totally fixable except for having just jumped.

One might expect that as someone who has repeatedly attempted suicide and yet is happy to be alive, I am opposed to euthanasia on psychiatric grounds. But it is because of my intimacy with suicide that I believe people must have this right.

Its true that policymakers, psychiatrists and medical ethicists must treat requests for euthanasia on psychiatric grounds with particular care, because we dont understand mental illness as well as we do physical illness. However, the difficulty of understanding extreme psychological suffering is in fact a reason to endorse a prudent policy of assisted suicide for at least some psychiatric cases. When people are desperate for relief from torment that we do not understand well enough to effectively treat, giving them the right and the expert medical assistance to end that misery is caring for them.

Canadas MAID law recognizes that people suffering from extreme depression, for example, may find no other means to end their agony. Approximately one-third of people coping with major depressive disorder have symptoms that do not reliably respond to available treatments. If you know there is no medically sanctioned way out of your mental pain, you may be likely to take matters into your own hands. Major depression is one of the psychiatric diagnoses most common to suicidal people, and approximately two-thirds of people who die by suicide are depressed at the time of their death. Yet any of us can commit suicide and currently it is an epidemic.

A panel of experts has recommended safeguards and protocols for requests for aid in dying made by people with mental illness. Should MAIDs extension to those suffering acute mental pain follow the Canadian model, patients will be able to make their case to two health care practitioners, who must agree that their illness is grievous and irremediable. This is far preferable to the messy, difficult, terrifying job of trying to do it yourself. The suicidal persons involvement in a behavioral health setting that can give a variety of kinds of help might result in rethinking the desire to die. Suicidal ideation can consume the lives of those who live with it. By interrupting or complicating the habitual patterns of chronic suicidal ideation, the prospect of relief through MAID could, paradoxically, ease the need for ending ones own life.

As DeseRae L. Stage, a therapist and suicide-awareness advocate, told me, This is one time that bureaucracy might actually save lives. While the Canadian application for physician-assisted suicide is being reviewed, treatment and reflection can take place. Also, the knowledge that there is a way out may alleviate the terrifying claustrophobia so common to suicidal people like me and to people in acute suffering more generally. Pain can make anyone panic.

When people are granted the right to end their lives with medical help, they may opt not to use it. People should be granted the right to this assistance. It does not follow they will exercise that right.

I agree entirely with Andrew Solomon when he writes, It is up to each man to set limits on his own tortures. That is the compassionate wisdom informing every law permitting medical assistance in dying. If we are willing to help people end their physical suffering by assisting their death, can we in good conscience deny them that help for their mental suffering? As psychiatrists like Dr. Justine Dembo of the University of Toronto have argued, excluding mental suffering from MAID would discriminate against individuals suffering intolerably from mental illness.

Yes, we need wise regulation; we need expert advice; we need the best medical information: This is precisely why physicians who specialize in this must be involved, and Canada has these experts. Must Canada, and other countries with similar policies permitting MAID on psychiatric grounds, like Belgium and the Netherlands, continue to proceed with the utmost care, with the advice of appropriate behavioral health and ethical experts? Of course. Should we be especially cautious when it comes to cases involving anyone about whose informed consent we have concerns, such as minors or the disabled? Of course. But this is how any enlightened health care policy must proceed.

Suicidal people suffering from psychological torture should have the right to consult a medical expert about medical assistance in taking their own lives and be given that assistance if their need is justified. Having terrified or anguished people in acute mental suffering ending their pain by the many means available to them, often resulting not in death but in terrible physical injury, is much worse, and its happening every day.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.

Clancy Martin is professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri in Kansas City and Ashoka University in New Delhi. His latest book is How Not to Kill Yourself.

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Opinion | Medical Assistance in Dying Should Not Exclude Mental ... - The New York Times

Maltese philosophy teacher Elton Grech discussed and made comparisons between euthanasia and abortion on Jon Mallias podcast.

Whoevers receiving euthanasia is in a much more advanced state, is more cognitively developed, and aware (than a few weeks old fetuses), Grech said on the Jon Mallia Podcast.

So why are we safeguarding cells that we cant properly identify as an individual? As a human, yes thats genes, DNA.

Elton Grech deliberated the issues that arise when talking about such sensitive and controversial topics, ones that involve matters of life and death.

Grechs argument is based on the fact that a fully-grown person waiting for euthanasia is, to our knowledge, more developed than a fetus.

Many see the potential of personhood as an actuality, and Grech used the scenario of a child who is a potential future driver as an example.

Just because someone whos seven years old has the potential to turn eighteen and start driving, doesnt mean youd give them the keys and tell them to go drive your car, Grech explains.

Do you agree with Elton Grechs argument?

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Watch: 'Why Are We Safeguarding Cells?' - Philosophy Teacher ... - Lovin Malta

At the height of the 21st century, Richard Fleischers Soylent Green can make for a somewhat weird watch. Originally released in 1973, the film first produces a sense of disconnect in modern viewers with its initial card, which dates its plot as taking place in the far-off year of 2022. The films extremely 1970s brand of sexism and neo-Malthusian approach to overpopulation can also feel uncomfortable for contemporary eyes. And, yet, Soylent Greens social and environmental concerns feel all the more urgent in a world in which climate change has become undeniable - though many still try - and the 1% looks for morally questionable ways to survive the imminent apocalypse. Though it hardly comes as a surprise to anyone, the films final reveal - Soylent green is people! - still packs one hell of a punch.

But theres something in Soylent Green that feels even more wrong than the realization that humanity has been engaging in involuntary cannibalism. It might not be as gruesome, but its certainly just as harrowing and a lot more daunting in just how much it speaks about the nature of humanity in such a world. This horror is the assisted suicide clinic in which Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson) chooses to end his life.

Despite being an integral part of the Soylent Green universe, the euthanasia facility is introduced fairly late on in the movie. Its addition to the plot, however, is essential to help viewers understand just how devoid of value human life has become in such a scarcity-ridden world. It is the one place in which the poor and weak of the Soylent Green society may find some semblance of dignity, but it is also the place to which you go to be turned from an unproductive individual into a product. When push comes to shove, yes, there is an intrinsic horror in learning that you have been consuming human flesh against your will throughout most of your life, but theres nothing like the realization that the only solace you can find is in choosing to die to make you realize just how little you are worth to society. And the way in which Sol decides for his own death only serves to make it all more petrifying.

RELATED: "The Only Good Human Is a Dead Human": Looking Back at 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes'

Based on the 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room!, by sci-fi author Harry Harrison, Soylent Green introduces us to an Earth ravaged by pollution, wealth inequality, and overpopulation. Food has become scarce, and the vast majority of the worlds population is able to feed only on nutritious cubes produced by a megacorporation named Soylent. The most popular of the companys products is the titular Soylent Green, a protein-filled snack allegedly made out of plankton. As the rich and powerful hide in elegant apartments, cities are overrun by poor people living either in the streets or in gun-guarded tenements. Meanwhile, the countryside has become off-limits in order to protect its few remaining crops. Human life has been commodified to a point in which people are all but literally turned into objects: furniture is the name given to women bought for housekeeping and sexual services by the rich, while a book is a live-in researcher assigned to a police detective by their precinct.

Our person of interest in this article, Sol Roth, is a police book in the service of Detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston). An elderly man with fond memories of the old world, he has trouble adjusting to his new reality. How can he do his research job if no books have been published in over a decade? How can he enjoy Soylent when he still remembers the taste of real strawberries? It is a harsh existence, but it only becomes truly unbearable to him after the murder of Soylent executive William Simonson (Joseph Cotten). As Sol and Thorn dive deep into the mystery of Simonsons death, some corporate secrets come to the surface. More specifically, as Sol looks into the top-secret research papers published by Soylent on the state of the Earths oceans, it becomes clear that there is not enough plankton for the manufacturing of Soylent Green. The super nutritious protein cubes, as it turns out, are made of people. They are made of the bodies that are picked up from the streets by the sanitation department, as well as of the bodies of those that choose to die in this universe's assisted suicide clinics.

This is too much for Sol to take in. Upon learning all this information, he sees no other option for himself but to surrender his own life to the state - and to Soylent. He leaves a small note for Thorn and walks to the closest euthanasia facility, where lines of people, young and old, all dressed in rags, wait to be put to sleep for the very last time. His decision is made a lot more heartbreaking by the fact that he knows what will happen to his body once the people of the clinic are done with him: he will be turned into Soylent Green. From a commodified human being, he will be transformed into a consumable good.

By choosing to turn himself into Soylent Green, Sol receives a respectful treatment for what is probably the first time in many, many years. He finds dignity in the facility's cool air conditioning system - a respite from the scalding hot air of the city, courtesy of the greenhouse effect. He finds kindness in the smiles and low voices of the clinics employees, that promises him a pleasant experience. He finds comfort in the bed and in the poison-laced drink, and beauty in the classical music hes chosen to accompany him in his final moments. Finally, he finds God and home in the images of the world he has lost, shown to him in huge cinemascope screens.

Sols death by assisted suicide is by far the most heartbreaking and shocking moment in Soylent Green, and not just because it hasnt been spoiled endlessly, unlike the Soylent Green is people reveal. However, the sheer existence of the euthanasia facility in the movie is already enough to send chills down anyones spine. It is horrifying to imagine a world in which dignity can only be found in death, and only if you choose to die, whether you know you will be turned into food. The people that die in the streets or in overcrowded churches are granted no such kindness. You are treated with respect only if you accept that you are nothing more than surplus and give up on trying to become anything else. The fact that this particular kind of assisted suicide is treated as humane only makes it all the more disturbing.

In the end, the reaction it evokes from us is much deeper than what is brought forth by the cannibalism reveal. Learning what Soylent Green is actually made of is shocking. It scares us and makes us nauseous, but the feeling goes away. The euthanasia clinic stays with us. It not only scares us, but brings us down. It kills something inside our very souls. Because, you see, even in the world of Soylent Green, forcing people to eat each other was something that had to be done in secret. Offering people death as the only alternative to an unbearable experience was done out in the open, with a veneer of charity and a little bit of spectacle. More than anything, this is the real sign that our humanity is gone: we are convinced to give up on it, and only by doing so are we able to regain it in the form of beauty and dignity.

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The Greatest Horror of 'Soylent Green' Isn't Soylent Green It's This - Collider