Mods note - Split from this thread:
Hopefully what is written below comes across as what it is intended as, which is just a series of statements and there's not any strong emotions behind it (as an example I'm aware that there's certainly cases where people being able to die more easily is the case would certainly be better). Rather I'm just trying to highlight where they maybe problems with a change from where we are at in an area fraught with a minefield of emotive issues (and certainly the intention is not to cause upset or division but with such topics it is easy to cause an emotional response from those who have had to deal with circumstances which are beyond my experience).
It is fairly much off topic (so feel to skip over it) to the extent that I also suggest that if people wish to discuss the implications further that a new thread is started.
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There's a significant moral issues with judging if someone should be given the ability to die before they actually do naturally.
Within the current situation it's still a difficult call, as even though there maybe families who accept that their relatives time has come, allowing them to be deliberately infected with Covid-19 (even with a DNR in place) may just result in undue suffering and take up NHS resources which could result others dying if the NHS is stretched too much.
Age is not guarantee that someone will die, as I'm aware of a relative of someone I know being mid nineties and only being aware that they had Covid-19 because they had a test before they were due to be vaccinated. Otherwise they had no symptoms.
Whilst it's clearly mentally hard on a lot of young people, few would argue that significant numbers will actually die and so the decision results in then suffering.
The problem is with how far are you willing to go? Do we do to the extent that there's too many over 70's taking up too many large family homes, which causes younger people to suffer due to them not being able to live in housing which perhaps better suits them which causes stress and financial hardship.
Whilst only my dad is currently over 70, both my and my wife's parents live in large 5 bedroom houses whilst we live (with 3 children) in a relatively small 3 bedroom house. Whilst it's possible that we might be able to get a larger house, locally it would cost us £100,000 for an extra bedroom, but even then actually the rest of the property would be reduced (typically going to a town house with a small kitchen and smaller garden).
We could move to a cheaper area, however that would come with quality of life issues which also has financial costs (currently I can walk to work, so can drop the children off at school/childcare if I couldn't walk/cycle to work, which would be the case with my current job and living in a cheaper area, then the children would need to be in wrap around care for longer and we'd have extra transport costs).
Now I'm not saying that we hard done by (we are fairly happy with what we have and with the course choses we've made), rather that there's an arguement that younger people can suffer in many different ways because of the impact of older people (especially if it's thought that there's too many of them) and that's it's difficult to know where the line should be in balancing between people being alive and the quality of life for everyone else.
As such the current position is that people are sometimes kept alive for longer than maybe it's good for them, however there's no risk of them being bumped off early.
Taking another personal example, if my grandparents (all the are in their 90's) were to die (and some of them have a lower quality of life then they would maybe like to have due to illness) then we'd probably inherit enough money to significantly help us with living in a larger house (either by moving or extending).
Now whilst I wouldn't wish to see my grandparents harm, there could definitely be cases (if the line shifted away from the status quo) where people would have a very strong pull towards helping their family members die as it would help them a lot financially.
Quite possibly to the extent where they would be commuting fraud (at least financially benefiting from overstating the case) and potentially murder (at least a planned killing, if it's legal or not may be within an area of grey). That's likely to cause a whole world of moral issues and isn't something that as a society that many are willing to investigate.
Until we are, then it's likely to cause other moral questions, but unless they are causing significant deaths it's not likely to change.
I once read something which was looking at a world where, due to limits being needed on population size everyone for to live until they were 40.
That's an extreme swing the other way from where we're at, but once the swing starts it's likely that it would overshoot where many (and that may only be 10% of the population, and so would still be very much in the minority) would be willing to let it go.
Anyway, as I've already suggested, this is fairly off topic and if anyone would like to discuss it much further I suggest that a new thread is started.
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