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War on Elderly Humans: "Lethal Ageism" and Its Cure

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I delve into the deadly threats posed to our elderly loved ones by contemporary culture-of-death trends in my current First Things column.

The article discuss some issues that I have explored recently, such as the joint euthanasia killings of elderly couples in Belgium and Rahm Emanuel’s intention to die at 75 because after that, life isn’t much worth living — attitudes that are slipping into public policy.

Then, I get into the explicit advocacy among some in bioethics for a "duty to die." From "Lethal Ageism":

Writing in the Hastings Center Report in 1997, bioethicist John Hardwig was even more explicitly lethal in his ageism, actually advocating that our venerable ones have a "duty to die" when they become dependent.

A duty to die is more likely when continuing to live will impose significant burdens — emotional burdens, extensive caregiving, destruction of life plans, and yes, financial hardship — on your family and loved ones. This is the fundamental insight underlying a duty to die.

A duty to die becomes greater as you grow older. . . . To have reached the age of say, seventy-five or eighty without being ready to die is itself a moral failing, the sign of a life out of touch with life’s basic realities.

Think about that. In essence, that is what Emanuel advocates between the lines. Hardwig is just more candid.

Next, I pivot to the potential cure. 

The antidote for lethal ageism is to assure our elderly at every opportunity that caring for them is an honor not a burden — a great gift not just a moral duty.

Sure, it can be tiring, but so what? We’ve all known people who cared for their elderly parents because it was the right thing to do, only to discover later that they were the prime beneficiaries. And we’ve known some who didn’t step up to the plate and later regretted their failure bitterly.

I quote a friend who left a successful career to care for his dying mother, and how that is the best thing he has ever done. Then, I conclude:

St. Paul put it this way: Love "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." We must love our elderly in just this way if we are to make them feel welcome and safe in an increasingly hostile world.

We are responsible collectively for our elderly worrying so deeply about being "burdens." We also have the ability to undo the existential damage we have inflicted.

Image source: Y. Ballester/Flickr.

Cross-posted at Human Exceptionalism.

Wesley J. Smith

Chair and Senior Fellow, Center on Human Exceptionalism
Wesley J. Smith is Chair and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. Wesley is a contributor to National Review and is the author of 14 books, in recent years focusing on human dignity, liberty, and equality. Wesley has been recognized as one of America’s premier public intellectuals on bioethics by National Journal and has been honored by the Human Life Foundation as a “Great Defender of Life” for his work against suicide and euthanasia. Wesley’s most recent book is Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine, a warning about the dangers to patients of the modern bioethics movement.

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