The cinema is generally thought of as a place for escapism. But a film that went on general release here on Friday confronts its audience with a disturbingly realistic glimpse of a morally bleak future. Plan 75 depicts a Japan in which when people reach the age of 75 they are given the option of euthanasia paid for, including funeral costs, by the state. The government advertises it as socially responsible: in one ad an elderly woman who has signed up declares, “My family will be so proud of me.”
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The euthanasia slippery slope is not a fiction
