One plus one equals three; 8; Three Score and Five

Why. One plus one equals three four. The. Mini gun you know and I wonder when it was made the meaning being there in the gun. When I was gonna do one thing that was not done that on on on me.

It is estimated that in 16:50 there were four hundred seventy million people in the world. It took two centuries for that figure to double. It took only one century to double again. Today there are well over three and a half billion of us sharing this planet. Demographers tell us that by the year 2000 the world population will swell to almost seven billion. This series of programs is about this problem about what happens because one plus one equals three. If you were born in 1905 and are now 65 years old you can expect to live about 12 to 16 more years if you have been 65 in 1900. He could have expected to live only about seven more years. Statistically a baby born in this country in

1900 could expect to live to be about 50. But that was statistically more than 1 out of every 10 babies died before their first birthday. Over three out of every twenty died before they were five. Today only about one of every 40 children die before they're a year old. The result of course is that our nation has a rapidly growing population age 65 and over. Typically in this age group is separated by a kind of generation gap from the other members of their family and from younger members of the society. Most are retired and most are receiving Social Security payments. Many have trouble deciding what to do with themselves financially. There are sharp divisions among the retired. They tend to be well-to-do or in tight financial situations. Only a slim third of the retired population is in what might be termed the middle income group home retired people share one thing in common a limited life time. Get a.

Life time. With coffee. Well. Flattering. To.

Me. Meet. Me one. Morning.

One child born to carry on Born to not only carry on family traditions but also to provide care for the parents when they're old. A little forethought reveals that plans must be made for what has been called the declining years in many nations particularly the developing nations of Asian African and Latin America. Parents need families to care for them when they are old. It is this need that is help keep birth rates high. This was one factor mentioned by Dr. Philip Hauser a professor of sociology and director of the Population Research Center at the University of Chicago. Dr. Hauser was asked could you give us an example of the kind of positive policy that yes even. For example let's consider a policy adopted by Sweden many years ago after a royal commission report Kaizen by their worrying

about population of the time when their birth rate was the low that they were worried about replacements in which the State Government asleep assumed responsibility for bearing the costs of education and health. The most the cost of raising a child. By that time this would be a pro nativist policy and this was to be available to rich and poor and I didn't matter because the theory was that the government owed this to the people in a sense as a form of service that that should be made available. Now this was a positive kind of policy. Some of the other kinds of policies that are under consideration. Would be for example the kind of thing being talked about in parts of India. Should the government guaranteed to Palance. Only age pensions if they have no more than two or three children. At the present time one of the factors that is thought that accounts for a high birth rate in India is in the absence

of any social security measures. They are depending upon sons. For support narrowly age. Now if the government were to make a bet on the bone of the Indian people block the idea that the government would support them in their old age and they didn't need to have five children are to be sure they have two sons that would be a policy that would tend to restrict for Turkey. This is the kind of thing that would be about are of the same character guarantee that the government would put children through higher education in India if the family had no more than two or three children. And these remarks by Dr Philip House are. Most retired Americans live either by themselves or with their family. Modern medicine has provided us with the health and care that has allowed more of us to live much longer. Indeed we can maintain life in the face of what we're about a few years ago. Fatal conditions the result of this has not always been welcome. I often wonder about morality and modern medicine. For instance

my grandfather was a dynamic man for most of his life. But his last year Sarah was tragic when for himself but his family too. He had hardening of the arteries. TAC had been severe enough to damage his mind. Really he should have died I think for afterwards he just couldn't think. He had no memory didn't know anyone not even my grandmother they'd been married over 50 years. He had no control over himself none at all. He just stared out the window all day. You look so miserable as if you didn't want to be alive. I know he didn't bother eating if someone didn't feed him and even then he avoided it. If they'd let him. It's it's a shame he couldn't have died with dignity. Thousands of such stories could be related. Most families can cite more and more of its members. We are going through such an experience or died after one. Even in cases where the situation is not quite so extreme. Families have a problem

what to do with Uncle Harry or Aunt Jane or grandma and nursing homes and hospitals. I want to answer a number of these institutions is growing but so far most elderly people who need care are getting it from their families. What does a situation do to the family unit. We ask Dr. Michael spar Konski assistant professor of family relationships at the University of Illinois about not just Park County not only teaches but also serves on the staff of the Family Service counseling unit of Champaign County Illinois. Dr. Spock Koski was asked at this stage in our country we have a greater number of people living to retirement age that is 65 or beyond. And the increasing number of families are going to have are are not going to have to be our currently facing is what do you do with Uncle Harry who the doctor says really shouldn't live alone anymore. So I want one of the basic factors involved with this kind of a problem.

In terms here of retirement age the aging person I think we have seen the trend from the extended family to a multi-generation family taking care of this person. Gone gone and changed this to something to the effect of here's the nursing home here's a public facility for taking care. I have a hunch we may be going the other way again in the not to distant future again I can't substantiate this maybe it's just wishful thinking but I see perhaps a trend towards more involvement with the family. Certainly old people don't necessarily like living in a nursing home by themselves and people who are planning communities living quarters for the elderly are starting to think that maybe involving them if not with their own families with other younger people with younger people with kids is not a bad idea as the green benches in St. Petersburg Florida may be fine in terms of sitting and seeing the sunshine but elderly people do like contact with others.

Like anybody else I think we can learn from them and they from other persons and so as we move towards this I think perhaps we will start changing our family functioning here a little bit again wishful thinking on my part maybe but getting greater involvement not just saying well you're over 70 we can't take care of you medically at home send you to the nursing home or to the poorhouse or whatever it happens to be in the community you live in. We're seeing certainly through the social pressure groups of the aged the Golden Age or kinds of things much more emphasis on doing something with the aging category and I think this is good I think since they make up 10 or 11 percent of our population they have a much more vocal voice than they did 20 or 30 years ago when life expectancy was closer to 40 or 45 maybe instead of 70 or 75. And these observations from Dr Michael spore KOSKY but transplants transfusions and miracle drugs intensive care units and a host of sophisticated testing and treatment procedures people can be cured or kept

alive for increasing periods of time. I growing number of people are asking not only when is a person dad but also what kind of rights as an individual have when it comes to his own death. Does a person have a right to a dignified death. Do everything with their. Every. Week. Was a week to a time to be born a time to die a time to die. What is the medical profession doing about mercy killing or euthanasia. The following

comments from Dr. Alan good mocker a physician and president of Planned Parenthood world population. Well we practice a modified form of euthanasia. If we have a person who is senile and out of contact with reality we're unlikely to get demented by God except they develop pneumonia. We're unlikely to transfuse them if they get Turby and they make it so that I think. We've gone that far. So the next question is should we take positive steps in the absence of the Angel of Death coming on its own. I think that under proper regulation. This is a lot to be said for my elderly age looking toward the future. I certainly hope that if I become non compos mentis and simply a vegetable somebody will be kind enough to eliminate me and I would like to do

unto others as I would like to do to me. But I think this is not simple and not easy so often of course you hear of people misusing it. This always strikes me as kind of garbage because I have much more faith in the medical profession. I doubt very much whether political or financial advantage would cause a doctor to eliminate a person. It shows very little faith in the medical profession. Same time. I feel it may be humane. I've got enough chestnuts to fry so that I'm not getting mixed up with us Alasia. I have great philosophical sympathy for it but I'm not doing anything really to promote it very actively. Well individuals such as Dr good mocker do not oppose the development of the concept of a right to a dignified death. Many many people are opposed to it and for understandable reasons. Allowing a person to die when he might be kept alive a little longer

or deliberately killing an individual or from Russia for reasons runs against the traditions that are part of our heritage. Most of us tend to feel it is immoral churchmen are however beginning to consider this question in light of modern medical developments. Dr. R. Benjamin Garrison is a minister serving the United Methodist Church of Urbana Illinois and a well-known critic and commentator on the Protestant church. He had these comments on the problem. What about the question you say you think. Let's say your husband or wife has a good solid reason medical reason to believe their husband or wife is hopelessly you know would not recover. I would like to have medical people ceased trying so hard to keep the personal I. What do you say to these people. Here's one of the places where I feel the church has really failed the medical profession because we have permitted doctors we have forced doctors to school to grapple with this problem in a solitary way on their own. And then

one of the encouraging signs in relation to this and certain other related problems is the emergence of fairly substantial numbers of experts medical legal ethical and so forth who are sitting down in the council and saying what insights may we share together in trying to solve these problems. The abortion question incidentally is an example of that. But in particular the matter of the of the so-called mercy killings and this sort of thing doctors have simply had to. Decide quietly and fearfully on their own. You know if you remember what is it not as a stranger came out with a novel that became it was on the bestseller list this was a good 15 years ago I guess I can remember being terribly shocked because the doctors allowed you know someone to die they opened a window or something. Well I I'm not even endeavoring now to speak for

for my church when I say this or maybe anything else I've said today as far as that's concerned but. I think a person has a right to a dignified death. I had a grandmother who lived a life of great dignity and who died as a vegetable because for virtually two years she was kept alive by our advanced medical techniques I mean her body was kept alive by our advanced medical techniques. I think I could make a case for the fact that that was wrong not just that it was would have been permissible to prove to have let her die but it was wrong to keep her alive. And I think there's a growing body of theological and ethical opinion which shares that. But until as frequently the case is on our laws or our behind our consciousness seems that what you asked earlier about sterilization in this particular community for example it is my understanding I mean in Champaign-Urbana that no

local hospital. Will perform the usual sterilization process on a male even at his request. It's being done in a few places but it's being done by by a private physician in his own office. Now the reason is not because the medical profession is unwilling to do this or not because it is not convinced that frequently it's the best outcome with Ruben some fearful lawsuits arising in various places from when someone has changed their mind later. And so a reputable doctor is understandably reluctant to go out on his own on these things. I think the same is true of the so-called euthanasia two rabbis from champagne but I also tackled the question how their views differ from Dr garrisons. The rabbis are Edward feld and Samuel Weingarten. What about the matter of euthanasia. This is a very very difficult question obviously not only for Rabbis

but for religious leaders of any persuasion or individuals to discuss. We have a statement in Jewish tradition that one does not do anything even to the extent of removing a pillow from underneath the head of one who is dying. In order to speed up so to speak the process of death. Life is sacred and remains absolutely sacred until one expires. However this all area's been complicated by some moral questions. For example let's go back to the case of a woman who is pregnant says there is an operation magically seems to be called for if the operation was performed. The woman who may already be dying. Well immediately die those one go ahead and permit such an operation to

take place. And I will add that this is an actual case which has come up in rabbinic legal response a little richer. The answer given was on the basis of the great many evil philosopher and physician and Jewish scholar my manatees that one could permit such an operation to take place. However the there were those obviously who differed with the opinion of my manatees. What I'm saying is that our position has been that because we respect without reservation the sacredness of human life we do not favor euthanasia. However we get into these gray areas and all through our discussion I think Rabbi Feld would agree with me we've been intruding upon grey areas there are no absolutes there are no blacks and whites in these discussions. And the case that I mentioned perhaps might even be used by some as a justification for euthanasia. I for one as an individual do not look with favor

upon euthanasia. And the argument has also been advanced that where there is life there is still hope. And let us not be so sure that all hope must be abandoned. Perhaps medical science will discover something that will save the life of this individual who is in extremis. I think that the question of euthanasia has become more complicated lately with the progress of science medical science in that it is now possible to keep many people alive who. Who would have died but the way they're kept alive is really as vegetables and that they're no longer at all. Conscious. They're kept alive by artificial machines and medicines being fed into them and they could be kept alive for years that way. Now if we remove the machines these people will die very soon.

Now it is medical practice in many hospitals to indeed do that. I don't know. At this point what I would advise a doctor to do. I have probably. Taken recourse in in sitting in my study and rather than go out and help the doctor make this very painful decision. I'm told by doctors that if they would not just let these people who who. Have really been in this condition for a long time die then all the beds in the hospital would be taken up with people who are kept alive by machines. I really don't know what to do in that situation. I do know. That. I have. I share

along with Rabbi Weingarten this. Is intense concern that in the way we work through these problems there is not lost our feeling for the sacredness of life. And these are very hard questions because that principle is called into question. Rabbi Edward feld and Rabbi Samuel Weingarten The problem of death faces us all. How do we want to die. It is a question for us all to ponder. Good timing good. Timing. Come on WAIT ON

thing. Where nothing was. The one thought it was one child born to carry on. What kind of life for this child face. What medicine do to make it better. My choices were medical developments offered a way and these questions are the subject of our program next week. Join us then. You have been listening to one plus one equals three for. Finding. A series of programs about the problems we face because of our growing population. Your host for this program has been Dennis Corrigan special music performed by Ria Truscott

engineering by Edna Haney. Damn I'm not going to beat one now. Right. Many many beat me down like many feet. And there is little to nothing and no one we know and I know that no one is being. One plus one equals three four five was produced and directed by Luis Geisler. It's been w i l l the radio service of the University of Illinois in Urbana. This is the national educational radio network.