Australia is a nation obsessed with productivity; it is seen as the only hope for the future by economists and the only solution to budgetary woes by politicians.
The most pressing concern relating to productivity – and one that has been threatening for decades – is the huge increase in the number of older Australians, with the associated increase in age-related disability and disease. As the Productivity Commission pointed out in 2011, this increase in the number of elderly Australians coincides with the decline in the number of informal carers.
It raises the uncomfortable question – who will look after us in old age?
The answer to this question is increasingly urgent, not only for its impact on the budget but also for the legions of Baby Boomers who must finally contemplate what happens to those who don't 'die before they get old'.
This heightened focus on end-of-life can be credited to the Baby Boomers' involvement with their own aging parents, and the experienced reality of life in nursing homes – a reality, mind you, that has existed for a long time, but which attains a new significance when it affects the loudest generation.
Not surprisingly, there's a distinct distaste for the status quo, and a desperate search for 'alternatives'.
It's nice to think that the solution will be found in an increase in the quality of care, but, as German sociologist Ulrich Beck notes, 'the very word "care" is dropping out of people's vocabulary'. It has been replaced by an idea of people as 'objects of medical intervention'. The very real fear, Beck writes, is that society will find a solution to 'indignity, dependence and isolation' of old age in the euthanasia movement, and embrace 'self-administered death as a release from over-prolonged life'.
Amidst this dangerous climate, the euthanasia movement in Australia is growing louder, selling itself as the compassionate response to old age and dying. After all, who would put up with old age if – as a recent comment on an economics website put it – you 'could simply buy a bottle of Nembutal at the local pharmacy and take a few pills to end it all in a dignified and peaceful manner'?
There is widespread support for the view that rational adults should have the freedom to decide whether life is worth living. On the face of it, euthanasia is simply an extension of the growing body of fundamental social rights.
The problem is that this right depends solely on individual judgements about the value of life, discarding the notion that life – even an unproductive, elderly life – might be inherently worthy. It also ignores the worrying reports of the euthanasia experiment in Europe, where deaths are often unregulated and unreported, and mandatory declarations are waived.
The prevalence of this utilitarian view of human life is increasingly evident in Australia. When euthanasia is discussed on talkback radio, elderly citizens call in to protest. Their aim is to prove their worth, to explain how they are still productive and contributing citizens, and not a drain on society. But this very response – measuring life in terms of cost and benefit – indicates that the debate has already been lost.
As inhabitants of the modern West, we continually assess the productivity of our fellow humans. When we meet someone we almost invariably ask 'What do you do'? British philosopher Alain de Botton calls this the 'iconic question of the early 21st century'. It reveals our ingrained belief that the worth of a person is inextricably tied to their productivity, a view that now extends to the once privileged arena of old age. Even our elderly, society demands, should be as busy and as useful as the rest of us.
We go to great lengths to hide the reality of death in our everyday lives, which is why it haunts us more than ever from the front pages of newspapers. We have little understanding of cycle of life – no experience of the world of our immediate past where birth and death occurred amidst the hustle and bustle of life. Of a time, evocatively described by Patrick White, where people died in the most unproductive of circumstances, in rooms filled with friends and relatives, with hands held by loved ones and 'surrounded by the stream of life'.
Brigitte Dwyer is an Adelaide based freelance journalist who recently completed Honours in English Literature at Adelaide University with a thesis on J.M. Coetzee's Childhood of Jesus.
Elderley woman image by Shutterstock.