Fear Of Old Age ( Search for a Magic Cure, II ) (Contd)

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The author Nancy Osgood writes: In a book chapter entitled 'Rational Suicide Among the Elderly,' Derek Humphry contends that old age is 'sufficient cause to give up' even without unbearable suffering. He sees suicide as a 'preemptive alternative to growing old.' Mary Barrington, past president of the London-based Voluntary Euthanasia Society, in her 'Apologia for Suicide' argues that a disabled older individual in poor health and in need of constant care and attention may feel a burden to the younger person(s) who must provide that care. This situation may be such that the young person is in 'bondage' whether willingly or unwillingly. The old person may want to 'release' the young person but has no real choice but to continue to live on. There is a strong implication in her writing that the older person who is a burden to the younger people should (has an obligation to) release younger family members from the burden of caring for her by opting for suicide.

Stating the same position in even stronger terms, Dr. Glanville Williams argues for the elimination of 'the senile' elderly. He writes: 'A decision concerning the senile may have to be taken within the next twenty years. The number of old people are (sic) increasing by leaps and bounds. Pneumonia, 'the old man's friend,' is now checked by antibiotics. The effects of hardship, exposure, starvation and accident are now minimized. Where is this leading us?... What of the drooling, helpless, disoriented old man or the doubly incontinent old woman lying log like in bed? Is it here that the real need for euthanasia exists?'

As the aging population continues to expand rapidly and we as a nation continue to spend more dollars on health care costs and advanced medical technology, which are disproportionately utilized by older persons, the need for budget cutting, health care rationing and redistribution of health and other resources becomes more pressing. Older adults are viewed as an emotional and financial burden to be borne by the younger members of society. Cries for rational suicide, the right to die, and legalized assisted suicide grow louder. It seems easier to eliminate the problem of too many expensive old people to care for, or to encourage the problem to eliminate itself through sanctions encouraging suicide, rather than to face hard moral choices about our financial spending as individuals and as a society and our appropriate obligations to our older members, who have created and improved the society we now live in.

To Be Continued

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