Hmmm, interesting. Aside from my gut reaction of NO! I think when Warnock says we should probably think about how this plays out. The way she says it is a harsh but it's kind of true.
I didn't read the article; but yes, I agree that creating a "duty to die" is a bit ridiculous and just a bad precedent, and yet PM's points here are very valid.
Do you know how many elderly citizens spend the rest of their years wasting away in retirement homes because no one in their family wants/has time to care for them? What kind of life is that? Who takes care of them? Who will give up their life in order to care for the elderly person?
That's the thing. Families don't live together more. And people are living far longer than they used to. Hence we get a lot of elderly people surviving ailments that would have killed them young, when they were still self-sufficient, and this places new burdens on the young and old alike.
MY grandparents hated being in a home, and my grandmother was mobile so she took care of my grandfather when the help at the facility was bad... but then she died and he had to struggle on two more years, unable to see, unable to walk on his own, dress himself, or even go the bathroom alone, doing nothing but listening to the radio all day long until his strong heart finally gave out. He was even a man of very strong conservative faith, but he was complaining all the time about why God was letting him live, he didn't see the point in it. Just very sad.
And yet with the geography the way it was, no one lived nearby and no one had the time to be there all the time -- my uncle was there during the week when he could, and my mom made the four-hour one-way trip every other weekend when she could get off work.
I've had two experiences recently that has made me think about this a little harder. I was talking to a young woman who basically is about to give up going to graduate school to take care of the grandmother who raised her. The grandmother isn't near death but she has a illness that requires nearly 24/7 monitoring and attention. Can't afford a home and the grandma has still got a decade of life. But this woman is the one most available to take care of her grandmother in this situation. What are they to do? Would anyone be willing to give up the time that it takes to achieve their life successes in order to care for an aging relative? It's not an easy decision to make, which may be what Warnock is getting at.
Exactly it. There is no easy answer to it.