Drew Magary The Postmortal

Drew Magary, in his imaginative and terrify book, The Postmortal, imagined a time in the near future where aging had been eradicated. No longer did people have to deal with the rampant, medical problem of death. Over the course of the plot, countries collapse, society breaks down and chaos ensues. It is this grim prediction that drives home the point of the author, but also the undeniable fact that society knows must be true. Everyone will and should die. As a result it becomes imperative that we discover ways, both personal and societal, to deal with our eventual demise. In Indian culture, there is a phase where the elder removes themselves from social practices in an attempt to transcend earthly desires and pass on with relative ease, knowing

In a country that has an increasing number of elderly, some with dementia and others with life threating illness, instead we die with a host of others; doctors, lawyers, priests and for the fortunate, with our families. We die attached to an inescapable number of institutional and societal requirements. As a result, death in the United States is complicated by a host of other parties including regulations, doctors, medical institutions but most importantly, our own kin. Thus, in America the process of dying for the individual does not occur in an autonomous vacuum. Though the medical world highly values patient autonomy, many times it is the family of the dying that creates more complicated of death in the modern world, as can be seen in the process of dying associated with physician-assisted suicide (PAS), dementia and how these processes may be related to cross-cultural familial relationships nearing

Physician assisted suicide (PAS) has been legalized in three states, Oregon (1998), Washington, and Vermont while Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) orders and the ability to refuse live saving treatments are established legal practices. These practices all fall under the heading of advanced directives and are contained within a living will, dictating how one is to die if one cannot speak for themselves. In many ways, these legal rights can be considered the ultimate expression of patient autonomy and choice in when and how they die, providing greater certainty in the process. Proponents of the legalization of PAS have stated that it allows a “dignified” death for those who use it and prevents unnecessary pain and suffering caused by extensive life prolonging methods (ProCon.org). However, PAS is only an option for those who have been diagnosed with an illness that gives them no more than six months to live while clinical depression is an “exclusion criterion” for those whishing to end their lives (Toll et al. Oregoneans). Thus this separates those who desire a way out of due to physically unbearable pain and suffering and those who perhaps in addition have alternative psychological reasons for wanting