Nancy J. Osgood and Susan A. Eisenhandler

Society’s negative attitudes toward women and the elderly give many older women a feeling of worthlessness, assert Nancy J. Osgood and Susan A. Eisenhandler. The authors contend in the following viewpoint that older women in American society are adversely affected by sexist and ageist stereotypes, so it is not surprising that they compose the majority of assisted suicide victims. Society must change its attitude toward and treatment of older women to reduce the number of elderly women suicide victims, they maintain. Osgood is a professor of gerontology and sociology at the Virginia Commonwealth University/Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. Eisenhandler is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What percentage of euthanasia...