Death with Dignity or Euthanasia?
Every day, Americans are manipulated by the government, people, and even the media. Most of the time we do not even realize that this is happening. For instance, when one goes to the movie theater, one rarely asks another what they thought of a certain part of the movie from a philosophical point of view or what the objective of the movie was. Often, when a producer writes a script for a movie, they are trying to get a point across (remembering that this film was created in the Nazi Era). And this is the situation for the German film Ich Klage an. As a class, we all closed our minds to the message portrayed and watched the sad love story between Thomas and Hanna, which ended fatally.
Positive and natural law play a big role in this film. Positive law is a man-made law. It can be changed, can be just or unjust, it is based on time and place. Natural law is universal, meaning that it applies to everyone, even those in power, it is always just, always unchangeable, and it comes from a divine source.
As said above, in the beginning of the film, it appears to be a love story, and we do indeed get sucked into the sentimental drivel because we like Thomas and Hanna. Hanna begins to die and we develop sorry feelings that she is dying, but we do not pay attention to the real issue at hand which is to make the extermination of defective children and terminally ill legal also known as the Euthanasia (“good death”) Program. This program was Germany’s first program of mass murder, about two years before the genocide of the Jews called the Holocaust. The goal of the Euthanasia Program was to eliminate what eugenicists and their supporters considered “life unworthy of life”. Those who were unworthy had severe psychiatric, neurological, or physical disabilities that were a genetic and financial burden to Germany. As defined by this program, Hanna fit this category without a doubt.
It may seem like it, but the main scene of the movie was not the