My position:
Medical technology present difficult challenges around end-of-life issues - 

    Everyday it seems there is a new technology meant to extend the amount of years that we spend on this earth. In just the last 40 years, the life expectancy of any certain individual in America has increased by as much as 30 years. This can cause huge problems, not only on the economic system. but on the individual person also.
    Generally, our bodies are just simply not made to last as long as they are. While we are extending the amount of years we live, we are dramatically decreasing the quality of life within those years. The different technologies simply do not keep up with one another.  You can't continually replace the individual parts of a car with newer ones without replacing the body frame and expect it to keep trudging along.  The smae goes for humans. What is the purpose of living for eighty years if the last twenty of those years is nothing but one doctor's appointment after the other in constant pain and exhaustion? 
    Also, this creates a great strain on our economic system. Retirement plans and Social Security itself was menat for a society where most people lived to be 60 or 70 at most.  Most individuals now have a life span of at least 82 years.  This dramatic increase is rapidly draining the resources of our economy as the socil security funds that are now being put forth by the working class are being used to pay off those retirees who are still alive. It is a constantly degenerating system that will eventually fail. 
    Plain and simple, the extension of our life spans is great, but only if we also keep our economic and quality of lfie systems up to date as well. Otherwise, we will become a poor, painful society deep in old age.