| | "...physical abuse, sexual abuse, and psychological abuse"
EW
Yes, it should not be illegal to hit old people, as much as I dislike the idea.
But here I wonder: what is the merit in resorting to violence against crazy old people, if it is just to ensure the rest of their pointless, pitiful lives?
I recall an aunt of a friend of mine, who spends her days lost in morphine-land, calling family members from beyond her stupor, all the while living on tax dollars.
She called him once, and I asked, "who was that?"
He answered, "My Aunt; she's dead."
At seeing my confusion, he said, "She's dead in every sense of the word, except the physical one."
I then recall a scene from the TV drama, ER. A doctor who had had a particularly hard day was in charge of a young man who had received a bullet wound in a gang fight. He was a young-ish miscreant, who had spent his life on the streets doing drugs, murdering, stealing, etc. When the patient's heart stops, the doctor immediately rushes over to the EKG machine (or whatever that heart-resuscitating machine is) and prepares to revive his heart. However, he pauses, pads suspended in mid-air, and seeing no one else in the room, lets him die.
I wish to know Objectivism's stance on the elderly. I'm quite sure I cannot endorse the doctor's decision, likewise my friend calling his aunt dead. However, what is the right thing to do in situations when the morphine-addicted, the malfunctioning, the repeat offenders, and the strains on society explicitly depend on us for life?
=Michael
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