Poverty, age discrimination, and health care

In Euripides' play Alcestis, Alcestis' middle-aged husband, Admetus, is told by the gods that it is his turn to die next. Admetus bargains a reprieve, promising in exchange to find another soul to take his place. His friends all turn him down. So do his father and mother. Admetus rebukes his father for the refusal. But his father replies that life is precious to him, too: "You are glad to see the light; do you suppose your father isn't?" (Hadas, 1960: 19). His father does not waver in the belief that he has no obligation to give up his life for Admetus, even though Alcestis, Admetus' wife and mother of their small children, volunteers to take Admetus' place. Alcestis, too, believes that "nothing is so precious as life." She is not, however, generous in her evaluation of her father-in-law's refusal to take Admetus' place. She thinks it appropriate for Admetus' parents, who had "come to a time of life fitting for death," to make the sacrifice (Hadas, 1960: 9-10).