Life Support
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I’ve never been enthusiastic about my nationality. Nor ashamed of it. Clearly I’m happy to have been born American rather than (arbitrary choice), say, Ugandan. But just about any Western European nation would have been just as peachy a birthplace.
But I get deeply peeved with the born again blinders worn in the US when it comes to my right to die. It disgusts me at the core that people can force my body to be kept alive even if I’d be happier dead. Ancient Romans and modern day Oregonians allow for a decent, humane outcome. But were a meddlesome police officer to catch me in an attempt to remove myself from this vale of banality he be forced to yell “Stop in the name of the law.” Silly law.
During my recent stay in Durham General Hospital I was kept alive via force-feeding. I still want my right to die. The appalling apple products they stuffed into me did at times register. All my dreaming was focused on escaping. And I fear I was increasingly begin to understand what was happening.
It could easily have become quite Hellish.
