170 Superlongevity Without Overpopulation to reverberate and deserves a response. The purpose of this essay is to address the essential concerns, provide current facts, and dispel the errors behind the overpopulation worries. VALUES FIRST As I will show, we have little reason to fear population growth with or without extended lives. However, to bring into focus an ethical issue, I will pretend for a moment that population growth is or will become a serious problem. Would this give us a strong reason for turning against the extension of human lifespan? No. Opposing extended life because, eventually, it might add to existing problems would be an ethically irresponsible response. Suppose you are a doctor faced with a child suffering from pneumonia. Would you refuse to cure the child because she would then be well enough to run around and step on the toes of others? On the contrary, our responsibility lies in striv- ing to live long and vitally while helping others do the same. Once we are at work on this primary goal, we can focus more energy on solving other challenges. Long, vital living at the individual level certainly benefits from a healthy physical and social environment. The superlongevity advocate would want to help find solutions to any population issues. But dying is not a responsible or healthy way to solve anything. Besides, if we take seriously the idea of limiting life span so as to control population, why not be more proactive about it? Why not drastically reduce access to currently commonplace medical treatments? Why not execute anyone reaching the age of seventy? Once the collective goal of population growth is accepted as overriding individual choices, it would seem hard to resist this logic.