Macabre advocacy

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32803, 31 December 1971, Page 13

Macabre advocacy

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) STIRLING (England), Dec. 30. Teachers could set an example to make the world a better place by volunteering to die, a meeting of British science teachers was told today.

The suggestion, which will obviously be received more favourably by pupils than by teachers, came from Mr Henry Longbottom, chemistry master at Settle High School, Yorkshire.

“Resources are being wasted to keep old people alive,” Mr Longbottom told the science and religion group of the Association for Science Education at its annua: meeting at Stirling University. “One person killed off this

planet creates an extra place just as much as preventing one birth.” But, he added, it was the elderly, retired, infirm teacher that he had in mind.

And he made it clear after the meeting that his suggestion was intended for those people finding life a burden and dependent on doctors, district nurses, or neighbours* help. “It is not the active aged I have in mind, but the inactive in their seventies,” he explained. “Neither is it a matter for legislation. People should be able to volunteer to have their lives ended ‘when they want’.” Mr Longbottom, who is 58, plans to retire in two years time, but does not himself intend to retire straight into his grave.