Senicide

Senicide is the practice of killing the elderly, encompassing both active killing and passive methods such as abandonment or withdrawal of care, and in some accounts overlapping with euthanasia or a described act of altruistic self-sacrifice by the elderly person. Reports of senicide appear across many cultures and historical periods, though the evidence for many claimed instances is thin, with few court records or eyewitness accounts, and scholars argue that some widely repeated examples, including the Japanese practice of ubasute and the Swedish attestupa, are legendary rather than historical. Thalaikoothal, practiced in parts of India, is documented as an ongoing contemporary instance.