Thanks to Richard for posting the links to Wesley Smith and Ryan Anderson’s reactions to David Brooks. Independent of Brooks’ endorsement of abandoning our efforts to extend human life (something more easily embraced from an American armchair than, say, an African AIDS hospital), Brooks misses the bigger issue for our budget.
Most of our social welfare programs assumed an increasing population, but with more and more Americans choosing to have no children or only one or two, there are not enough young people to support the old. As a culture we have increasingly decided we don’t want the burdens of parenting, yet we are surprised when we lose its benefits as well. With all due respect to Mr. Brooks, the problem is not that people are increasingly dying lingering deaths. It is that they are dying alone.