Assisted Dying for the Rest of Us

The baby boomers have changed our society as their demographic wave has washed over one institution and norm after another. Split sessions for public schools, a new level of competition for elite colleges, the free love generation and the rise of student protest, the housing bubble, the creation of the Millennials, (a.k.a. the echo boomers). They have the numbers and the political will to do things, and they have time and again pushed against the norm. To use the phrase of one baby boomer, they think different.

The final change will occur with the crashing of that wave: The availability of assisted dying for all. Assisted dying is already becoming the norm for those with terminal illnesses. Australia is the most recent to join the ranks of Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Columbia, and Luxembourg, as well as California, Colorado, Washington, D.C., and Oregon in the U.S. (I use the term assisted dying broadly, to also involve giving the subject a lethal drug, and not literally being on hand as they take it and pass away. That is what is allowed in California.)

Currently there are restrictions, like having a terminal illness, especially one that is either painful or imminent. But once the mechanics are in place and the threshold has been passed, it is only a matter of degree to have assisted dying for those who decide that their debilitating state makes them no better off than one who is terminally ill. Once we have clear diagnosis tools for Alzheimers, for example, I can imagine voluntary assisted dying protocols along the lines of a more successful and less surreptitious Alice Howland in the film Still Alice.

The way is being paved to make this more acceptable. For example, consider the context provided by a recent full section in the New York Times devoted to the bleak world of old age and dying in Japan. We will see more articles depicting the emptiness of old age, the drain on society and our children, arguments that we should take charge of our death just as we do our lives -- this is the sort of thing that resonates with the baby boomers, also called the "me generation" -- and even arguing, as I have, that keeping someone alive can be akin to torture. I also have argued in a past post that we could help matters along by giving payments (obviously to a designated beneficiary) if someone elects to forgo expensive treatments that would only delay death by a short period.