Posted on 12/16/2007 1:06:27 PM PST by wagglebee
Christopher Buckley's dark satire Boomsday imagines a Social Security crisis that pits the generations against each other, and a public relations campaign to persuade older Americans to do the "right" thing and check out early. There are even financial incentives and free Botox if you schedule your suicide.
But what if, in such a world, it were the women - the always dutiful women - who felt the pull of responsibility most strongly and signed up first?
That is exactly what Susan Wolf, a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota and an opponent of physician-assisted suicide, fears.
Wolf made her case in a recent The New York Times Magazine article written by Daniel Bergner about the efforts of former Washington Gov. Booth Gardner to pass a physician-assisted suicide law like the one on the books in Oregon.
Women are caretakers of children, parents and husbands, she argued. Aren't they more likely to want to avoid being a burden themselves when they become old or very sick?
Wolf also said women are more likely to acquiesce to the authority of a doctor, who is most often a man.
If assisted suicide were one of the options the doctor presented, as he would be obliged to do if it were legal, wouldn't a woman be unduly influenced toward that choice?
In Bergner's article, Wolf also talked about the literary and cultural traditions of suicides by women, going back to Sophocles' Antigone and Shakespeare's Ophelia.
Wolf was unavailable to elaborate on her theory of the particular vulnerability of women in a society that permits physician-assisted suicide. Her office at Minnesota said she was dealing with a health crisis involving her mother.
But something about this point of view didn't sit right with me, particularly because statistics from the first decade of the Oregon law show that assisted suicides have been split pretty evenly between men and women.
So I pursued it with Dr. Peter Terry, a professor of medicine in pulmonary and critical care at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a member of Hopkins' Berman Bioethics Institute.
"The Oregon statistics don't on the surface suggest that there will be a propensity of overinvolvement by women," he said.
And, he said, "There are relatively good sociologic studies that suggest that women tend to have larger support groups as they age than men.
"The effect of the support group might counter any propensity."
Exactly, I thought. My girlfriends would never let me check out, and they'd make sure I was cared for.
It also occurred to me that, while my mother's generation might have been vulnerable to a suggestion that once her care-giving days were over, she was expendable, I doubt that this generation of women would think that way.
We are the boomers, after all. We think we are the center of the universe.
"I think that is a good point," said Terry, laughing slightly.
Wolf did not limit her fears of vulnerability to women. She expressed concerns for minorities, too. On that point, Terry agrees, and it is fundamental to his opposition to physician-assisted suicide.
"The health care system that we have does not provide equal opportunity to all. The poor and those who aren't able to afford comfortable end-of-life care, because they are suffering, might choose this."
However, Dr. Thomas Finucane, who specializes in geriatrics at Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, agrees with Wolf.
"I think women are more vulnerable," said Finucane, who also is a member of the Berman institute. "Elderly women are more likely to acquiesce to the suggestions of men wearing the cloak of respectability."
And the mere availability of assisted suicide as a medical option, Finucane said, would "poison every single conversation a doc has."
Besides, he said, suicidal thoughts are a function of depression. That means you treat the depression. You don't write a script for a deadly cocktail.
"In both genders, there is strong evidence to suggest that if you are considering suicide, you have major depression, and that's true even if you have advanced cancer."
In his 25 years as a geriatric physician, Finucane said, only one patient has asked that death be expedited.
"And that was a man."
I got those looks back in the 1980's. I think much of it started with the book, "The Population Bomb", published in 1968.
“Hey from what I’ve seen I think I’d welcome euthanaisa if I got older 60 ... the last thing I want to be doing is eating stale mashed potatos from meals on wheels and waiting for my grandchildren to remember me. Death would be preferable.”
I’m guessing you are about 22 right now and not likely to get much older if you say these things to people 60 yrs old. In many cultures the elderly are respected and cared for. Evidently not wherever you are from.
Would you be okay with saying that the nearly 15 million abortions performed from 1973 through say 1980 were almost all baby boomers? And will you acknowledge the substantial drop in child birth rates starting when the baby boomers came of age? All I am trying to do is point out the fact that when a huge generation reproduces at a much lower rate than their parents did that it will have consequences, especially when there are government programs for retirees that are funded by CURRENT taxpayers.
By tradition, the elderly and infirm are treated
as revered teachers, who by their physical needs,
teach the young how to love,
by themselves needing physical caring and love
Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother
takes on a very different meaning
By "removing" the elderly and infirm
The children never learn to unselfishly
give themselves in love
This condemns the young into a life
of selfish desires, and subsequently, suffering
The_Four_Noble_Truths
Very true.
I am 22 and my Dad just died at the age of 62. Despite the the troubles we had in the past, I was over at his place 5-8 hours a day making sure he was all right, along with talking with his doctors, taking him to and from appointments, and doing all his shoping for him. I know what I did is the norm, and I can tell this guy must have a pretty crummy family life if he feels the way he does. I also wonder if he visits his parents or grandparents.
When single-payer healthcare gets here, this will be considered a public duty.
And even under our current "private"-but-absolutely-not-free-market scheme, I can see the day when our HMOs will impose the same requirement.
Th age I am now, as it happens. Everything still works and I still love life. If we had a real free market health system, your own life would be a choice YOU get to make. As it stands now, it will be made for you when someone who is officially accredited determines that your time is up.
From your web page...
I’m 20 years old and I’m majoring in business with a minor in economics.
Hmmm...
From the standpoint of one 50+
60+ is looking better and better
BTW
one marker for a selfish viewpoint
is the ubiquitous use of first person pronouns in speech...
When I was 20 I thought I had all of the answers, now I’m 40 and I finally understand that I don’t even know all of the questions.
And will you acknowledge the substantial drop in child birth rates starting when the baby boomers came of age?
Yes, but you have to pay attention to what ended the boom (1964), when most boomers were no where near child bearing age yet.
Splitting the boomer generation in half, you'll see that the biggest boom was between 1956 & 1964. From the US Census Bureau.
“From your web page...
I’m 20 years old and I’m majoring in business with a minor in economics.”
IMHO, 20 year olds with nothing more going for themselves than a business major are a drain on society and should be euthanised.
And yes I’m being sarcastic but perhaps you’ll think about your position a little more with a new perspective.
So, ‘Women and Children’ first? After I have raised 6 children, some not biologically mine and I care for my infirm husband for 10+ years as I carry a higher life expectancy, I can just expect to be shot at his funeral?
Legalized doctor assisted suicide coupled with socialized medicine. It’s not hard to see where that will go.
Ages
At fifteen, I aspired to learning.
At thirty, I established my stand.
At forty, I had no delusions.
At fifty, I knew my destiny.
At sixty, I knew truth in all I heard.
At seventy, I could follow the wishes of my heart without doing wrong.
Confucius
Translation: "If you disagree with me, I will pronounce you mentally ill and incapable of making your own decisions, and the government should back me up in forcing you to accept my decisions. And if my decision is to wipe out your life's savings that you were planning on leaving to your grandchildren, and spend all the money keeping you alive when you don't want to be alive, the government will see to it that your money is confiscated and delivered to the institutions that employ me and my co-thinkers. All for your own good, of course."
Needless to say, this is the same sort of rationale that the Soviet government used, when it shipped people off to psychatric "hospitals" against their will. If they expressed disagreement with the Great Communist Cause, then obviously they were mentally ill and had to be locked up for their own good.
So, you disagree that suicidal thoughts stem from depression and you think that the government somehow invented this in order to control people?
what the heck are you babbling about.
Translation: “If you disagree with me, I will pronounce you mentally ill and incapable of making your own decisions, and the government should back me up in forcing you to accept my decisions.
Hmmm...
From one Christian standpoint
I do not own my life
I have a better thing
Stewardship
Suicide from this standpoint is
denial of gift, turning away from stewardship
Or worse, fearing God’s purpose in our appointed task
In my very limited experience (24 years in Neurology)
Suicide is always preceded
by a profound deterioration in Self Love
No exceptions
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