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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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What does the community think about lifespan extension technologies?
— the need for an empirical base for ethical and policy debates | | Author(s) | Jayne Lucke, Bree Ryan, Wayne Hall |
| Journal title | Australasian Journal on Ageing, vol 25 no 4, December 2006 |
| Publisher | Blackwell Publishing, December 2006 |
| Pages | pp 180-184 |
| Source | http://www.cota.org.au / http://www.blackwellpublishingasia.com |
| Keywords | Longevity ; Life span ; Biological ageing ; Social ethics ; Public opinion ; Australia. |
| Annotation | Public understandings of the possibilities for increasing life expectancy, interest in take-up of lifespan extending interventions, and motivations influencing these intentions are examined. Structured interviews were conducted with 31 adults in Queensland aged 50+. Participants believed that technological advances would increase life expectancy, but questioned the value of quantity over quality of life. Life in itself was not considered valuable without the ability to put it to good use. Participants would not use technologies to extend their own lifespans unless the result would also enhance their health. While these findings may not be generalisable to the general public, they provide the first empirical evidence on the plausibility of common assumptions about public interest in "anti-ageing" interventions. Surveys of the views of representative samples of the population are needed to inform the development of a research agenda on the ethical, legal and social implications of lifespan extension. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-070109217 A |
| Classmark | BGA: BG6: BH: TQ: U5: 7YA |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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