On the future of human rights

I think it’s still the case – in the West, I’ll speak only for the West, and certainly in North America – I think it’s still the case that we treasure all human beings. Nobody is proposing that we just shoot Alzheimer patients and toss their bodies into a dumpster. We don’t know how long that remarkable treasuring will last; I hope it lasts forever. Is it endangered? Possibly it’s slightly in danger by assisted suicide proposals – but I don’t hear the people who argue for that insisting that we start treating Alzheimer’s patients and people in permanent comas differently. So I think we in the West continue … I think this is very deeply embedded in our moral culture, and I don’t see movements to get rid of it.