Diana Rosenkaimer, on the Facebook group IHI Patient Activists, has this to say about end of life autonomy in response to a statement I made in a discussion thread citing the notion of ownership as central to dying in peace:
Medicine can try to define it all they want, they are extraneous unless they cause it. We come into this world alone, we leave alone. And more importantly, leave us alone when we die. Just let the person (who owns it) decide what is right for him/her.
What a statement!
Of course, deciding what is right for ending our lives on planet earth requires much more than we give to it. Most of us don’t know what we don’t know until we’re medically enmeshed and—perhaps ironically stated—get stuck on that slippery slope, in some situation we had avowed against without having much if any knowledge about how to enact and enforce our vow.
What will you do about that?