Posted on 10/07/2014 6:25:06 AM PDT by Kaslin
THE ELDERLY are such a pain, aren't they? Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel thinks so. Half of those older than 80 have "functional limitations," the prominent health policy analyst and key ObamaCare architect writes in the October issue of The Atlantic. One in three Americans 85 and up has Alzheimer's. Old people are more likely to be disabled, or at least "faltering and declining." They lose their creative mojo. They don't "contribute to work, society, the world." Instead of being regarded as "vibrant and engaged," they grow "feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic."
Especially disagreeable are old parents, who can be so irritating: "They set expectations, render judgments, impose their opinions, interfere, and are generally a looming presence for even adult children," Emanuel complains. By living too long, parents blow their chance to impart "the right memories" to their kids. Nothing could be worse, he insists, than being remembered not as we were in our prime, but as old and decrepit — "stooped and sluggish, forgetful and repetitive, constantly asking, 'What did she say?'" To leave behind memories of our frailty "is the ultimate tragedy."
And that, declares Emanuel, is "Why I Hope to Die at 75."
In his 5,000-word Atlantic essay, Emanuel — who heads the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, and has an appointment at National Institutes of Health— announces that once he reaches 75, he will decline nearly all medical treatment. No more flu shots, no colonoscopies or other screenings, no pacemakers or surgery. "If I develop cancer, I will refuse treatment," he writes. He won't even take antibiotics to cure pneumonia or an infection, preferring instead to be carried off by the "quick and relatively painless" death untreated infection usually leads to.
Or so he says.
Debate over the health resources consumed by America's elderly have been ongoing for decades. As a candidate for Massachusetts governor in 1990, Boston University's John Silber famously generated sparks when he replied to a question about the surging costs of medical care for the elderly by asserting: "When you've had a long life and you're ripe, then it's time to go." President Obama has suggested the same thing, albeit far more tactfully. In 2009 he cited his grandmother's hip-replacement surgery during her final illness, publicly questioning whether such costly procedures for the terminally ill are a "sustainable model" for health care.
Over the years Emanuel has energetically weighed in on these issues, but that's not the focus of his Atlantic essay. His argument is not about dollars and cents, it's about quality of life. Death is a loss, but "living too long is also a loss" — loss of vigor, of autonomy, of productivity, of smarts, of ambition. If we're to take him at his word, he cannot bear the thought of slowing down as he ages. He recoils from the way the old gradually learn to "accommodate [their] physical and mental limitations" — retiring from a profession, taking up hobbies, doing and daring less.
"As walking becomes harder and the pain of arthritis limits the fingers' mobility, life comes to center around sitting in the den reading or listening to books on tape and doing crossword puzzles." Emanuel, whose essay is accompanied by a picture of himself and two nephews on Mount Kilimanjaro, would rather die of pneumonia than live like that. He maintains he is "certainly not scorning or dismissing people who want to live on" despite the debilities of old age. But it's hard to take that disclaimer seriously, when the whole point of his essay is that a diminished life isn't worth prolonging.
Maybe Emanuel is merely being provocative. He acknowledges that 75 is an arbitrary age to designate as the boundary between a vibrant life and a feeble one. He admits there are "myriad people I know who are over 75 and doing quite well." At the start of his essay, he claims "I am sure of my position" — yet reserves the right, at the very end, to change his mind once he reaches his 75th birthday.He mocks Americans who exercise, do mental puzzles, and consume "various juice and protein concoctions" in their quest to live longer. "Manic desperation," he calls it. "Misguided." "Potentially destructive." That's not scorn?
Emanuel is 57 now, which gives him 18 years to reconsider his death wish, and to learn, perhaps, that the declines of advanced age can be a blessing as well as a curse. To be able to accept the pains and impediments of mortality requires a measure of courage and dignity that few of us are blessed with — or can even imagine — in our prime. Emanuel's own father, now 87, has slowed down considerably. His career is over. His son describes him as "sluggish." And yet the old man describes himself as happy.
Emanuel may dread the prospect of ending up like his father. But he's still young, and not yet wise.
>>And that, declares Emanuel, is “Why I Hope to Die at 75.”<<
Many of us hope Dr. EMengela dies NOW so he doesn’t have to suffer all them there maladies...
At their core liberals are suicidal. They should no more be making health policy that Muslims administering the Vatican.
The same could be said of a lot of people on welfare. Let's get rid of them too.
At their core liberals are suicidal. They should no more be making health policy that Muslims administering the Vatican.
You speak truth. And everything liberals touch - rots no wonder they are suicidal.
The same could be said about those in Washington, D.C.
This “doctor” is playing God....
His turn will come....
This man causes me to think uncharitable thoughts toward him.
So emanual is a doctor supposing upholding the Hippocratic oath but only to a certain age and then it is off with your head. What a poor excuse for a doctor and a human being. Other cultures revere and care for their elderly. Here old people are just a bother. He will get old one day - actually he looks like he should be on his way out now. I wonder how he will feel when they decide to pull his plug.
This is all part of the left’s Nazi like onslaught against society’s weakest -the young and the old. The young are for abortion or sexual abuse. The old are to be discarded as useless.
Imagine we are reading an article by a supposedly intelligent adult who is discussing the fact older people get arthritis and lose their posture, as if he just discovered maggots in his refrigerator.
These are very mentally diseased people and we used to keep them marginalized. Do you have any doubt what this man would do to any frail person he gets his hands on?
Try to distinguish his attitude from Naziism.
I would say my aunt is more competent and healthy than Emanuel and the others who want to kill her off.
See, you have no inherent human value. Your only value is based on what you can contribute to the State und der Fuehrer!
He’s a Socialist and proud of it.
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I feel no guilt or other emotion wishing him an early demise. He is a 21st century Nazi idealist who would see anyone he deems unsuitable for life deprived of their lives.
Do civilization a favor and commit suicide doctor; we all know the horrors that the last batch of doctors like you brought about in Germany 70 years ago.
Hey why wait? Die tomorrow.
I always thought of 50 as being old ... until I was 49.
I always thought that 65 was old ... until I was 64.
I always thought that 75 was old ... until I was 74.
Wanna bet that his tune changes as this twerp matures?
His attitude won’t change. Like all socialists he will always see value in himself, his superior intellect, his superior being. The rest of us have no value unless we serve him and his concept of a perfect society. Remember, he is a part of the “Master Race”.
First they talk about it, then they find extreme cases to justify it, in the end it is accepted as the best thing for the people left behind. It isn’t new it has happened numerous times in the past....it’s called genocide...Nazi Germany practiced it and now Islam is practicing it. People should be judged by the company they keep!!!
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