Abstract
We have invented a new kind of death in the last 60 years. This new kind of death makes a profound difference – ethically, legally, socially, theologically and philosophically – and urges us to reflect on the implications of this new death. Some 15 years ago, I posed the question “Is There a Duty to Die?” (Hardwig 1997) to which I argued that there is.
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Notes
- 1.
In fact, we have not quite killed the old man’s friend – the combination of pneumonia and influenza is still the fourth leading cause of death among those 75 and older (Yoshikawa 1983).
- 2.
There are many versions of Christianity, of course, but my mother’s case may not be unusual. A hospital chaplain I worked with maintains that none of the traditional religions is of any help to us in dying – they were, he claims, formulated to deal with deaths that are very different from those we now face.
- 3.
See also Brown et al. (2009). This study found a decreased risk of mortality for elderly spouses who were providing fewer than 14 h/week of caregiving. These are, however, very modest caregiving requirements and the authors hypothesize that their findings might not apply to caregivers providing more intensive caregiving.
- 4.
- 5.
I borrow this terminology from Veatch (1988).
- 6.
With only slight modifications, this is the list of considerations previously published in Hardwig (1997).
- 7.
Still, we must also recognize that some diseases – Alzheimer’s or Huntington’s chorea – will eventually take their toll on our loved ones no matter how courageously, resolutely, even cheerfully we might manage to face that illness.
- 8.
The London School of Economics published a report about dementia in 2009 that stated, “There are currently 700,000 people in the UK with dementia. By 2021, the figure is expected to rise to 940,110, before reaching 1,735,087 in 2051” (Disabled World 2009).
- 9.
An assumption is evident at this point: I am assuming that there will be no “cure” for aging, at least not in our lifetimes, or that if there is a cure, it will be very expensive. There will not, I assume, be the equivalent of the Salk polio vaccine for aging.
- 10.
To some extent, outsourcing healthcare to families is already happening in Europe, too. Again, using the U.K. as our example: “The research by the London School of Economics and Institute of Psychiatry said that caring for one person with late-onset dementia costs an average of 25,472 pounds per year. At the present time, the bulk of this cost is met by the person with dementia and their families” (Disabled World 2009).
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Hardwig, J. (2013). Is There a Duty to Die in Europe? If Not Now, When?. In: Denier, Y., Gastmans, C., Vandevelde, A. (eds) Justice, Luck & Responsibility in Health Care. Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy, vol 30. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5335-8_7
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