Hi there,

Way down at the
bottom of the newsletter is a brief article from Australia. It’s a YouTube clip
from “The Gruen Transfer”, a popular TV show about the world of advertising
agencies. One of its features is “The Pitch” in which two agencies compete to
create ad for unsellable products. In the past these have included whale meat,
tourism in Baghdad, an invasion of New Zealand, bottled urine, child labour, housing
built in the shadow of a nuclear reactor and so on. You get the idea: good
taste and deference to conventional pieties are not high on the producers’ shopping
list.

Recently “The
Pitch” featured two advertisements for compulsory
euthanasia. The agencies came up with two slogans: “Compulsory euthanasia at
80. The issue is very much alive” and “Australasia for euthanasia: let’s all go
by 80”. The amazing thing was how persuasive they were. They pulled at the
heartstrings and just for a moment made me feel that popping a Peaceful Pill was the decent thing to
do.

Check them out.

Cheers,
Michael Cook
Editor

• Author
• Recent Posts

Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

Latest posts by Michael Cook (see all)

• How long can you put off seeing the doctor because of lockdowns? - December 3, 2021
• House of Lords debates assisted suicide—again - October 28, 2021
• Spanish government tries to restrict conscientious objection - October 28, 2021