Bioethicist At National Institutes of Health: "Why I Hope To Die At 75"

Posted by samzenpus on Monday September 22, 2014 @06:12AM from the end-of-the-line dept.

HughPickens.com writes Ezekiel J. Emanuel, director of the Clinical Bioethics Department at the US National Institutes of Health, writes at The Atlantic that there is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. "It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic." Emanuel says that he is isn't asking for more time than is likely nor foreshortening his life but is talking about the kind and amount of health care he will consent to after 75. "Once I have lived to 75, my approach to my health care will completely change. I won't actively end my life. But I won't try to prolong it, either." Emanuel says that Americans seem to be obsessed with exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein concoctions, sticking to strict diets, and popping vitamins and supplements, all in a valiant effort to cheat death and prolong life as long as possible. "I reject this aspiration. I think this manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive. For many reasons, 75 is a pretty good age to aim to stop."

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Re:The WHO by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-22 10:00 · Score: 5, Informative

Holy fuck is this WRONG and it's not funny at all.
I worked in a dementia ward and I would not wish that on my worst enemy. It is a truly, staggeringly horrible way to go out. You don't know about the confusion, the pain, the mental trauma this disease causes, do you/ You dont just slip into a blissful state of forgetfulness, you are in a world of torment as your mind fucks you over.
Dementia is a very distressing, traumatic disease and the reason I support assisted suicide. There are things worse than death and dementia is one of them - the piss poor jokes about dementia serve to cover up the horror that patients truly experience. And it is horror, why do you think dementia patients are drugged to the gills?