Virtually Dead

Here is an opportunity to learn about ageing and dying without actually doing either one, or at least before going through either one.

Here is an opportunity to learn from the experiences of the ageing and dying, and to see elder abuse from their perspectives.

Elder abuse can be blatant or subtle, camouflaged, and persuasive. Elderly people, the objects of our affection, should not be treated as objects ripe for abuse.

Yet subtle, camouflaged, and persuasive elder abuse is rampant and widely socially accepted. Younger people unilaterally or domineeringly make decisions for the elderly on a regular basis, often without careful thought, reflection, and thorough consultation with the elderly themselves.

Aged people become pawns in societies. Often, they are incarcerated in institutional settings, often without their consent and often against their will. They are taken on a drive and dropped off, forever.

Elder abuse effectively assumes that ageing erases people, until they are permanently deleted by death.

But being elderly does not mean being less human or losing the rights that younger people enjoy as a birthright or by law.

Humans of all ages need an equal opportunity to try to determine their own paths and futures. Nothing should be done to or with anyone "for your own good". Each of us needs to have the opportunity to decide what is good for us, whether we make good decisions for ourselves or not.

Every person alive makes choices every day. Some choices can prevent or cause injury or death. It is better to let people make up their own minds than to manipulate them with limited or biased information or to make unilateral choices for them without their well-informed consent.

Elderly people should not have to give up and surrender their lives to younger masters of their destiny.