As a person who firmly believes and advocates pro-choice in terms of controlling and deciding things that are good for my mental and physical well-being; having that same prerogative for choosing death never occurred before.
During a bio-ethics course in college, the case of Terri Schiavo was broached. She was a young woman completely surviving through life support. Essentially, her body was dead. Her family wanted to maintain her on life-support, probably hopeful that a breakthrough in modern medicine will bring their daughter back into their arms. Her husband, on the other hand, wanted to ensure she received a dignified death. The husband and her family fought an epic battle that riveted the American nation and even had the then President Bush interjecting his perspectives.
Undoubtedly, at this point in my life, I feel having the ability to choose what is good for my body is an essential human right. But does that same right encompass death as well?
In a hypothetical scenario where my body is ravaged and riddled with cancer, and I opt for death to ease myself of the pain and the inevitability of demise, am I right in doing so? Can I say I am in the "correct" frame of mental health to declare I choose death? Am I doing justice to my family and friends in wishing for death? What of their desire to be with me till the end?
Perhaps these question are of those nature that will be constantly debated and never fully answered. I cannot truly imagine how Terri felt, or how her husband and family felt when they hotly contended their views on her right to life and death. Neither can I predict how my loved ones will react to my pro-choice inclinations if I experience a similar fate.
But it certainly does make sense for a person to wish for a dignified death in any manner he/she deems appropriate. Who are we to deprive or thwart them from this basic right?
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