I'm so glad to hear that Christian Rossiter has won his right to refuse food. I was also interested to hear that he hasn't actually decided to exercise it. At least he now gets to view his situation from a position of choice, which seems like a basic human right to me.
Whichever decision he makes, he's made things a tiny bit better for everyone. I wish him wisdom and peace in exercising his hard won choice, either way.
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I've weighed in on it here.
ReplyDeleteI'm saddened, angry and quite a bit disgusted that people are seeing this case, taken as a whole, as a "win". It's a giant barrel of fail, of every last one of us as a society, and I'm in tears seeing all these posts talking about it as a unalloyed good.
Not one person questioning the horrifying way in which this man has been treated since his injury.
Not one.
My personal context is that I have a relative who was miserable, and seemed to be refusing food in a fairly passive way. She was offered the option of refusing all medication, which would have ended her life fairly quickly. She gave it due consideration and chose to live.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that when people know that they can choose to die whenever they want see their life in a more positive way, and so I think the decision is a good one.
Your point that I have completely ignored the factors that lead to Mr Rossiter looking for this right is well taken, though. And in fact, it's true in the case of my relative too. I think part of it is that it breaks my heart to see the way she is treated, and the lack of interest from the system in providing her with technology (or anything much else) to assist her. But she is in her nineties, and apparently old people don't need to access the world anyway.
Wow, this turned into a rant. In short, it's a classic case of not thinking about it because I feel powerless, which is not an excuse, but is the truth.