Rex,

Thank you for an excellent assessment of the positives and negatives of ageing.

<<Recognising the value of older workers and creating a more welcoming environment in the workplace would help improve labour force participation rates among this cohort >>

I know of a person in excellent health who is aged 60 and has applied for job after job, but without success. He has lots of experience. When he asks if his age is a hindrance for the rejection, of course the employer says, 'No', as to say otherwise would be discriminatory.

Since I'm a regular church goer, I notice this selectivity in the music sung. When I discuss the thrash or rock music being played, it's not unusual to hear from pastor or music director, 'The youth are our future'. That's a contemporary way of saying, 'Go jump, when it comes to the music choices for the ageing group'.

ttbn,

<<Voluntary euthanasia would be a good start to solving the problem.... There is no “value” in ageing or in the old>>

I agree that there are pains as we age and I've had my fair share after 5 open heart, valve replacement surgeries. However, my view is not as pessimistic as yours.

Voluntary euthanasia won't do it, but compulsory euthanasia will. It has reached such stages in Belgium and The Netherlands that some people who don't ask to be euthanised are given a deadly injection. See: http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/2016/02/involuntary-euthanasia-without-consent-by-patients/

No matter what my physical and mental limitations are as I grow older, I'm leaving my life and death in the hands of the Lord God who sustains my life and has stated in poetic form:

Your eyes [the Lord] saw my body even before it was formed.
You planned how many days I would live.
You wrote down the number of them in your book
before I had lived through even one of them (Psalm 139:16, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+139%3A16&version=NIRV).

It is alarming that in comments on articles about aging euthanasia pops up within the first few posts. While in articles about euthanasia, aging pops up within the first few posts.

There is a real danger of the voluntary part of euthanasia getting a little murky when put into practice.

Granny getting put down when it is convenient for the beneficiaries of the will or those who don't want the hassle of the older generation, seems more like murder than euthanasia.

Aka,

<<seems more like murder than euthanasia>>

However, putting the words of euthanasia and assisted suicide into legislation is not quite as confronting as voluntary murder and assisted killing would be.

When we are faced with the facts, legislating euthanasia is launching government and medical practitioners into a business which should be none of their business. Both government and the medical profession should be involved in upholding the Hippocratic Oath, part of which reads,

"I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art". See: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=20909.

At end of life, their efforts should be focussed on easing the pain and palliative care, instead of hastening death by administration of 'a deadly drug'.

Oh dear.. the ageing population again.
Where have you been?
We have been here for a long time.
And for that long time we worked, we paid taxes, including surcharges to pay for our pensions because our employers paid no superannuation.
Those of us who are female worked at the same jobs for far less money than did the males.
Most of us had children who grew up to work and pay taxes and generally keep this country going. Some of us even went to war for the generations yet to come.
But now we are a burden, a problem, we have done the unthinkable, we aged.
We are here, we were here before you, we have worked longer than you who continually talk about us as the ageing.
If you were doing half the job that we did for this country you could possibly earn our respect.
The worst offenders are politicians who somehow think that our growing old is a problem for them.
Unless you have worked and paid taxes for fifty years or more, then you don't have the right to voice negative opinions about the ageing population.

But now we are a burden, a problem, we have done the unthinkable, we aged.
Hilily,
I see the young as OUR burden who take what we saved up for over fifty years !