Two weeks ago I wrote a column based on the movie, The Giver. Today I would like to revisit the film because of an op-ed by Arina Grossu that appeared in USA Today. She wrote about the many bioethical implications of the movie. Everyone lives in a socialist paradise where everything is equal and everything (the environment, the weather, even emotions) is controlled.
The topic of surrogacy surfaces early in the movie. Surrogates in a clinic rear children away from their parents. They monitor the genetic and medical health of the children who are created. Only the healthy are allowed to survive. This sounds eerily like the recent story of a couple that asked a surrogate mother to abort one of the twins because he had Down Syndrome. When she refused, they took only the healthy twin sister and demanded a refund.
I might mention that one of the most jarring scenes in the film is when the father of the main character takes a needle and inserts it into the head of a baby who didn’t make the grade. He says cheerfully to the baby “Bye-bye little guy” and then places him in a box and drops him in a chute.
When she was on my radio program, Arina Grossu noted how similar that act was to the horrors we have discovered from Philadelphia abortion doctor, Kermit Gosnell. She also talked about the Twitter message from atheist, Richard Dawkins. He said a couple with an unborn child with Down Syndrome should “Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.”
In addition to infanticide, there is a clear reference to euthanasia. When elderly people in this dystopia no longer have any utility, they are “released.” This is done with a ceremony before the people of the community. Apparently these death panels decide when it is your time to go.
You can judge the morality of a society by what it does for its weakest members. The book and movie start out describing a utopia, but soon we see how it treats those who are not perfect. Sadly, our world today looks too much like the community in the book and movie.