Adapted From On Dying After Your Time by Daniel Callahan (New York
Times Nov. 30 2013).
[T]he dream of beating back time is an old one . . . For some scientists,
recent anti-aging research on gene therapy, body-part replacement by
regeneration and nanotechnology for repairing aging cells has breathed
new life into this dream.
Even if anti-aging research could give us radically longer lives someday,
though, should we even be seeking them? Regardless of what science makes
possible, or what individual people want, aging is a public issue with social
consequences, and these must be thought through.
Modern medicine is very good at keeping elderly people with chronic
diseases expensively alive. At 83, Im a good example. Im on oxygen at
night for emphysema, and three years ago I needed a seven-hour emergency
heart operation to save my life. Just 10 percent of the population mainly
the elderly consumes about 65 percent of health care expenditures,
primarily on expensive chronic illnesses and end-of-life costs. Historically, the
longer lives that medical advances have given us have run exactly parallel to
the increase in chronic illness and the explosion in costs. Can we possibly
afford to live even longer much less radically longer?
Whats more, an important and liberating part of modern life has been
upward social and economic mobility. The old retire from work and their
place is taken by the young. A society where the aged stay in place for many
more years would surely throw that fruitful passing of the generations into
chaos.
And exactly what are the potential social benefits? Is there any evidence that
more old people will make special contributions now lacking with an average
life expectancy close to 80? I am flattered, at my age, by the commonplace
that the years bring us wisdom but I have not noticed much of it in myself
or my peers. If we werent especially wise earlier in life, we are not likely to
be that way later.
I have often been struck, at funerals of the elderly, of the common phrase
that while the deceased will be missed, he or she led a full life. Adding
years to a life doesnt necessarily make it any fuller.
We may properly hope that scientific advances help ensure, with ever
greater reliability, that young people manage to become old people. We are
not, however, obliged to help the old become indefinitely older. Indeed, our
duty may be just the reverse: to let death have its day.
Identify the arguments presented in the article.
Explain whether you think scientists should try to help people beat
old age so we can live radically longer lives. Defend your position
using the reading as well as your own observations and experience.
