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Audio Recording

Video Recording

Our view of aging—and of those who are aging—influences our approach to many ethical issues in health care. In the context of limited resources that will continue for the foreseeable future, prevailing attitudes toward elderly people can pose a profound threat to their dignity and even their very lives.This session begins with an examination of the context of limited health care resources and the way that limitations force a society’s view of aging to the surface. A comparison of widely influential U.S. and African views of aging illustrates how the devaluing of older people in the U.S. is not a result of scarcity per se but of other forces.It is commonly asserted that the escalating cost associated with the rapidly growing number of older people ethically requires limiting their access to health care. The validity of that claim is critiqued here, and alternative explanations for the movement toward limiting the health care available to older people are discussed. The session examines the increasingly utilitarian orientation of U.S. culture, along with the waning influence of biblical-Christian perspectives in public life.To unpack the significance of this last development, the session goes on to describe a biblical-Christian perspective on aging. The two primary characteristics of elderly persons are examined, as are the two appropriate responses that they call for from individuals and society alike.While such a perspective straightforwardly rejects a utilitarian devaluing of older persons based on their lower economic productivity, its implications for other possible rationales for age-based rationing of lifesaving health care may not be as evident. So the session also considers other such rationales, including medical benefit, equal opportunity, natural lifespan, and prudence, and finds them wanting.The session concludes with some observations regarding the dangers of impatience with aging in this biotech age and the important sensitivities that a Christian outlook can contribute to a wise approach to aging-related issues.

Keywords:
"aging, end of life, ethics, age-based rationing, resource allocation, Healthcare"