what happens if the family is unable to provide the care due to financial or nursing skills inabilities. Are we to put are elderly and severally disabled out on the curb with the trash?
"Another practice considered cruel by the European people was the sick and
elderly being left behind when the tribe moved to follow the migration patterns of the
buffalo they fed off. What the Europeans didn’t understand was that if the tribe had to
slow down for one person, there was a very real chance they would lose the track of
the buffalo and the whole tribe could potentially die of lack of food if they did not find
another herd in time. Elders were highly respected in the tribes as counsellors and
teachers of the young, and they knew that they the individual must be sacrificed for
the group, so when the time came when they couldn’t keep up any more, they asked
to be left behind. On the harsh Plains, the elderly and sick would quickly die of
exposure, from either the biting winds, baking days or freezing nights. From the view
of the Westerners, this was merciless and disgusting behaviour, but they often did
not understand the sacrifices which had to be made in such an arid place to keep up
with your only source of survival and that the people who were left behind chose to
be abandoned."
For me dignity in death is more important than keeping me alive so the companies that perform these services can get rich.