Futures

Scientists now understand the mechanism of ageing. They managed to understand why human beings get old. It is basicaly due to the divisons of the cells. The aim now is to be able to manipulate this mechanism. And this could lead to things such as the cure for cancer and the biological immortality. In deed some scientists strongly believe that in the next 20 to 50 years there will be a treatment available to stop ageing. This would mean that you could live forever. But many issues arise when thinking about this possible future. If we all become death proof we will then have to stop making babies in order to cope with overpopulation. China showed the entire world with their one child policy introduced in 1979 that trying to control populations growth raises huge concerns about human rights. Coming back to our possible never ending life, some new policies will have to be made to control this new issue. And these policies will certainly not please the populations of our societies.
The abandon of natural reproduction. Nature gave us the ability to reproduce ourselves in order to continue our posterity, and we could dare to stop that wheel of evolution. A rebellion against nature like this one would certainly have an impact on humanity and its beliefs.
So suicide, accidents and murders will be the only ways to die. The numbers may rise dramaticaly if immortality was to happen. Because Man is scared of the unknown, he tries to find solutions to it for Him to feel better and less anxious. In this case Man is scared of death and rather than trying to find whats after death (which is more of a metaphysical subject at the moment) he prefers to eradicate this process. No more death, no more questions to have about it. No more anxiety on this subject. Natural death will be seen as an old disease from the past.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/13/tech/main673726.