Is Greater Life Expectancy Always Desirable?

778 Words4 Pages
The quest for the elixir of life has been going on throughout history. In every civilisation, there are myths which depict heroes and heroines who live long lives, some even forever. There is also recorded history of men and women, called alchemists, who experimented to discover means by which people could live forever; or at least for very long times. Mod¬em medicine too aims to prolong lives — often even of very sick per¬sons with no hope of recovery from their ailments. In fact, one of the signs of a progressive nation is when its statistics show that its popula¬tions has a high life expectancy; that is that they can live longer than their forefathers. The longer the life expectancy of a nation; the better that nation. All these show that it is in the human consciousness to want to live for a long period of time. The question now is whether this is always desirable. Seen in the light of the individual, longer life expectancy certainly seems desirable. Almost everyone would like to live and enjoy life longer. Hu¬mans have generally shown a reluctance to die and leave this beautiful world and their loved ones. This is in the survival spirit with which every person seems to be born. Almost all of us want to prolong our lives and live as long as we can. However, there is a condition to this. We also want to live well. If we are in dire economic consequences or incurably ill or in great suffering, we would not want to live too long, as doing so will prolong the difficulty and pain. If with greater life expectancy comes greater health, it would be a good thing. Suppose a person can be made healthy till the day he dies, then he will not be dependent on anyone and greater life expectancy would be most welcome. Usually, we say that life expectancy has increased, in a society, with reference to statistics. These are likely to be simple and just show that over a number
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