What is a good death? Because our society has evolved into one with an abundant amount of life-sustaining technologies, most believe the answer is a “natural” death. When we consider a natural death, the vision represents one before the development of modern resuscitative technologies—so, perhaps a revolt again technology altogether. However, this definition of death by how medically involved it is may be shortsighted. One must imagine something even more elemental to truly understand what death is like stripped of its social context. There are three main mechanisms in which cells die—necrosis, autophagy, or apoptosis. In the cellular version, necrosis is considered a “bad” death, whereas apoptosis is considered a natural one. These three mechanisms represent life and death at a cellular level, creating a phenomena that is much more socially conscious than it is at a human level. Essentially, an appropriate death is central to the survival of an organism. Death, therefore, is not the enemy—it is the fear that death arouses. This fear forces us to make choices that defy the biological constraints of our existence, often resembling a fate like that of necrosis. So in order to have a natural death, or that of apoptosis, for the organism to survive, the cells must die and they must do it well because our cells understand that “life without death is the most unnatural fate of all.”
See Haider Javed Warraich, What Our Cells Teach Us About a ‘Natural’ Death, N.Y. Times, March 13, 2017.
