Expiration (When the Expired Were Thrown Out)

Expiration is a term used in the society where and when the expired are thrown out to describe the process of reaching old age or becoming terminally ill to such extent that the continuance of one's life is considered a severe health threat to people, physically and psychologically. It essentially means that one is no longer a person by law and can thus be enslaved, molested, abused, attacked, or even slain without punishment for the perpetrator. It is an analogy, albeit a quite offensive one, comparing elderly and severely diseased humans and nonconformists to expired food which has lost its quality and has become hazardous to health.
== Social health inspections ==
Social health inspectors inspect human beings to ensure that they are safe and healthy for society. If they do not comply with the Social Health Standards of the Ministry of Health, they must be "thrown out" immediately.
According to the Ministry of Health, a person is expired if:
* s/he has a terminal illness or degenerative disease
* s/he has a degenerative mental disorder such as Alzheimer's or dementia
* s/he is severely physically disabled or immobile (see Ability laws where the expired are thrown out)
* s/he has lost vision or hearing
* s/he is "an unsightly object whose presence is sufficiently disgusting to result in distress or phobia" (see Physical appearance laws where the expired are thrown out)  
* s/he is unable to reproduce (see Reproduction laws where the expired are thrown out)
* s/he is socially unintelligent and socially unconscious
* s/he is revolutionary, reactionary, democratic, socialist, communist, leftist, rightist, religious, or intellectualistic 
* s/he is narcissistic, psychopathic, and/or antiscocial
* s/he is schizophrenic (includes divinistic schizophrenia), paranoid, or bipolar
* s/he is mentally retarded (official)
All persons who meet any of the Criterion for Expiration shall be thrown out immediately. Contrary to the common duty of physicians to heal their patients, physicians in the Society are empowered and often required to kill their patients. 
== For the protection of the Society ==
The Superior Council of the Society often claims that they enact laws "for the protection of the Society". Laws are not enacted for the individual, but for society as a whole. Therefore, even if the individual still desires to live, s/he can be killed upon determination of social medicians.  
== Ethical significance ==
Although most of the people in the Society ignore the throwing out of the old, diseased, and nonconformists, some members of the High and Writ who practiced political philosophy, and some commoners who suffered the deaths of their loved ones have begun to protest the marking of people as expired and degenerate, believing it is used to get rid of old, ill, and "deformed" people who were considered "inconvenient burdens on society" and to suppress freethinkers and anticonformists who refuse to act in accordance with popular opinion.