Thorn, I'm going home - Sol

February 9, 2008 5:11 PM

Sci-fi which features state-assisted suicide as a means of escape/population control? (Caution: THIS QUESTION IS MADE OF SPOILERS!)

Just watched Soylent Green, and was particularly struck by the scene in which Sol "goes home," to a state-sponsored assisted suicide clinic that offers him a few minutes of respite from a world gone mad, in exchange for him voluntarily reducing the population. I was struck by the scene not only because it was so great, but because it reminded me so much of the Quietus concept from "Children of Men" (the book more so than the film).

And I'm vaguely remembering a Vonnegut short story along similar lines - the government will help you die in peace and dignity, but only because doing so benefits them, too.

Are there others? Non-sci-fi is fine, too, but I'm guessing that's where most of the hits/near-hits will be.

posted by jbickers to media & arts (30 comments total)

Wasn't there a Star Trek episode sort of like that, too? Kirk gets kidnapped because a planet is massively overpopulated, and they want to use a virus in his blood to kill off volunteers?
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 5:21 PM on February 9

Logan's Run is a classic of that genre.
posted by dws at 5:22 PM on February 9

In Logan's Run people willingly go to their death at a certain state mandated age (21 in the book, 30 in the movie adaptation).
posted by RichardP at 5:24 PM on February 9

Oops, I should of previewed. Sorry dws.
posted by RichardP at 5:25 PM on February 9

The Star Trek episode 'A Taste of Armageddon' dealt with a similar scenario. Wars are fought virtually by computers. People who would have been casualties (according to the computers' calculation) dutifully report to be killed.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 5:37 PM on February 9

The Vonnegut story you're thinking of is 2BR02B, pronounced "2 B R naught 2 B." (Get it?)
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 5:37 PM on February 9

Robert W. Chambers's "The Repairer Of Reputations," part of his King In Yellow book of stories about a play that drives readers mad, is set in a future U.S. where there are federally-funded suicide centers.

Steven, you're thinking of "The Mark Of Gideon" episode.
posted by Kirklander at 5:40 PM on February 9

More of a kid's story, but The Giver by Lois Lowry features state euthanasia of old people/criminals/on request.
posted by jacalata at 5:42 PM on February 9

Wikipedia on "Suicide Booth"
posted by camcgee at 5:43 PM on February 9

"Welcome to the Monkey House" by Vonnegut also has this theme.
posted by Daily Alice at 5:45 PM on February 9

Yeah, Futurama is the first thing that came to mind.
posted by geekyguy at 5:56 PM on February 9

Barbarella has it too.
posted by 235w103 at 5:59 PM on February 9

The short story “The Repairer of Reputations” in the book “The King in Yellow” by Robert W Chambers features Government run suicide chambers.

“the first Government Lethal Chamber was established on the south side of Washington Square, between Wooster Street and South Fifth Avenue.”
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”the whole block enclosed by a gilded iron railing, and converted into a lovely garden, with lawns, flowers, and fountains. In the centre of the garden stood a small, white building, severely classical in architecture, and surrounded by thickets of flowers. Six Ionic columns supported the roof, and the single door was of bronze. A splendid marble group of "the Fates" stood before the door”
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”A few curious people still lingered about the gilded iron railing, but inside the grounds the paths were deserted. I watched the fountains ripple and sparkle; the sparrows had already found this new bathing nook, and the basins were crowded with the dusty-feathered little things. Two or three white peacocks picked their way across the lawns, and a drab-colored pigeon sat so motionless on the arm of one of the Fates that it seemed to be a part of the sculptured stone.

As I was turning carelessly away, a slight commotion in the group of curious loiterers around the gates attracted my attention. A young man had entered, and was advancing with nervous strides along the gravel path which leads to the bronze doors of the Lethal Chamber. He paused a moment before the Fates, and as he raised his head to those three mysterious faces, the pigeon rose from its sculptured perch, circled about for a moment, and wheeled to the east. The young man pressed his hands to his face, and then, with an undefinable gesture, sprang up the marble steps, the bronze doors closed behind him,”
posted by Tenuki at 6:00 PM on February 9

Ira Levin's novel This Perfect Day had its characters poison themselves with their daily government-provided vitamins when they had reached a certain age. Technically suicide, I suppose.

What I remember most chillingly about the graphic novel V for Vendetta was a character complaining that his mother was going to be taken to an old age home. "Homes? They're gas chambers!" Another character looked him in the eye and said "Not gas. If you want the truth Robert, there's just three good South Ken boys with iron bars." Creepy.
posted by infinitewindow at 6:42 PM on February 9

I am really embarrassed to post this, but there's a Sliders episode with this as well. Wade signs up for "the lottery" (nice reference, Sliders writers) and gets treated like a queen before she is killed.
posted by emyd at 7:17 PM on February 9

I haven't seen it in easily 20 years, but something like that may have been in the background in 1972's ZPG, in which overpopulation is like totally bad and nobody gets to have kids for 30 years or something.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:36 PM on February 9

War Day is a post limited nuclear war roadie book. One of the sub plots is how people deal with the effects of "being on triage" including euthanasia of the old, crippled and dying as a way of saving resources. One is triaged if their life time calculated dose of radiation is higher than a set level. If one is triaged you can not get treatment from any registered medical practitioner or at any medical facility. The only exceptions are for euthanasia and for highly communicable public health diseases like TB.
posted by Mitheral at 8:11 PM on February 9

There was an episode of ST: TNG that dealt with a society whose people commit suicide on their 60th birthday to preserve dignity and/or control population and/or give the next generation a chance for greatness.

The catch is that the planet's greatest scientist, and only hope to prevent the planets sun from going nova, turns 60 before he has a chance to successfully test his world-saving experiments...

Bonus: Fantastic acting by David Ogden Stiers as said scientist.
posted by sandra_s at 8:21 PM on February 9

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes was "Half A Life". Good episode.

There was also a Stargate Atlantis episode (Childhood's End) where "The team visits a world where no one is over 24 years old, because of ritual suicides they believe keep the Wraith at bay."
posted by Becko at 11:42 PM on February 9

This month's F&SF had a story containing this topic. Wait a moment. It's on my bedside table.

Sorry, it's actually next months.
"Exit Strategy" by K.D. Wentworth.

Pretty good story.
posted by Seamus at 12:26 AM on February 10

Of course, it's a church and not the state in "Exit Strategy".
Sometimes I can read every word in a post. Not today though.
posted by Seamus at 12:27 AM on February 10

Children of Men (film, not sure about the original book) has Quietus, the suicide pill. Slogan: You decide when the right time is. You can see some of the ads for it on this graphics showreel.
posted by Happy Dave at 1:41 AM on February 10

Oh, just saw the Children of Men ref in your question. Oh well, enjoy the show-reel, it's quite cool.
posted by Happy Dave at 1:45 AM on February 10

A character in Iain M. Bank's Consider Phlebas "autoeuthenises", not state-sponsered though.
posted by vaxtv at 3:55 AM on February 10

Sidebar: I've only seen "Soylent Green" once -- and that was in a theater during the original run! But that scene is really seared into my memory. (That and the scene where Heston brings scraps of food home -- including the spoon with a dab of jam on it.)
posted by RavinDave at 5:08 AM on February 10

This is the central theme of Walker Percy's The Thanatos Syndrome and also a subplot in Walter Miller's Canticle for Liebowitz
posted by hydropsyche at 5:13 AM on February 10

Alan Moore covers this concept in the Ballad of Halo Jones graphic novels. Near the beginning of the story, two of the lead characters make a run through a garden/park type place where poor people ("hoopsters") are allowed to go to kill themselves. Then, Halo ends up in the military which is used, I think, as a different form of population control.
posted by Clay201 at 6:08 AM on February 10

The Holy/Sacred Mountain contains a bit of this, but I don't think the people were meant to be aware of what was happening:

"To save the country's economy we must eliminate four million citizens in the next five years." - "Begin the operations of the gas chambers, gas schools, gas universities, gas libraries, gas museums, gas dance halls and gas whore houses, et cetera."
posted by jbrjake at 6:30 AM on February 10

There was a Sliders episode like that too. It was called "The Lottery." Everyone was allowed to take as much money out of the ATM as they wanted but every dollar they took out raised their chance at winning the lottery. If you won the lottery you had a week to be treated like a Queen, and then you would die.
posted by thebrokenmuse at 11:57 AM on February 10

Not suicide, but Philip Jose Farmer's "Dayworld" features overpopulation controlled by suspended animation, with people assigned one "live" day per week.
posted by 5MeoCMP at 4:34 PM on February 10