As the 20th century came to a close, the United Nations celebrated the International Year of Older Persons, heralding the vision of “A Society for All Ages.”
The first years of the new millennium have been anything but that, with the abandonment of frail seniors during natural disasters from New Orleans to Japan, the legalization of assisted suicide in several U.S. states and foreign countries, and political rhetoric that seems to consider the growing population of seniors merely as a drain on our health care system and the federal budget. Is this the society for all ages we envisioned in 1999?
