Old People Should be Put Down
"A modest proposal"
When I go to the hospital, to visit my brother after another one of his drunken accidents, I see an alarming amount of the same type of people filling the hospital beds. These types of people are also clogging the streets of White Rock and Kelowna when I go there to shop or stroll. I see them everywhere, in every country, in every region of the world. These people may be chalk full of wisdom, but their feeble minds sometimes can’t retrieve it all, or they’ve become vegetables. I’m talking about the elderly. Becoming old is reaching epidemic proportions in this world.
As they get older, elderly people contribute less and less to society, and in fact, become a burden after they’ve stopped working, as they require pensions and a significant amount of medical care and attention. Many elderly are confined to hospital bed as doctors try to keep their unfulfilling lives intact, using valuable resources and much needed medical supplies. There are a lot of young people who still have their lives ahead of them that might need an organ that would be given to an old person just because the need was more urgent. Thus, my proposal is that once they reach a certain age (perhaps 70), having had a fulfilling life and without a job, we kindly put them down. Now, I know humans can live to be 120 years old, but by then they are virtually useless, having lost function in their brains and bodies.
The Earth’s population is somewhere around 6,716,098,794 people and that number keeps growing. Dependant old people make up 25.8% of that population. If we could eliminate that burden, many people would be able to live happier more extravagant lives, and their children would have more opportunities and better educational funds. It would also serve to solve some of the Earths overpopulation problem.
It would also free up many housing opportunities for less fortunate people and homeless people, since someone would have to fill up the space left behind by all the deceased old people. We could easily fit all of the homeless people into the many retirement communities that there are in this country. It would also provide an opportunity for people to move to Canada from poorer countries.
Also, the strain on the healthcare system would be relieved, as elderly people take up over 42% of the system. Care taken from young people who may lose their lives for the sake of an old person would be given back, and there would be less waiting periods for organ transplant and other treatments. And one can’t help but compare the value of a younger person’s life to an old person, which is much less than the young persons, as they are nearing the end of it. It’s just unfortunate that elderly people’s organs and tissues are virtually useless at that point, or else they could be giving back in many more ways.
I also have to admit, not many people I know enjoy the thought of growing old, and the possibility of dying before having become senile or vegetative is an appealing prospect. I myself would rather die some fantastic way than be a vegetable lying in a bed. What would be the point of living if you can’t do anything or even enjoy it through remembering? Plus, by that age, many of your friends might already be dead or demented, and let’s be honest; almost nobody over the age of ten really likes the company of seniors.
And I can’t say I would be entirely unaffected by this proposition. I have grandparents who I hold near and dear to me, but they are getting a little senile and living off of pensions, which are barely enough to support them. I would miss my grandparents dearly, but if it’s for the betterment of society I’m sure they’d agree. They would be given the opportunity to say goodbye to their family and younger friends, have a chance to enjoy their funeral, and then given the lethal injection, right into their coffin if they wish (skip embalming, it’s pointless), or carted off to the crematorium.