Will To Live

Here’s the lesson I learned from The Sea Inside, which I saw last night. If I want to get pretty women to fall in love with me, I need to publicly declare my desire to end my life. I’ve been going about things all wrong. Enough of this trying to assimilate with the rest of able-bodied society. Starting tomorrow, I’m confining myself to my bed and I’ll begin dictating morose yet moving poetry. I’ll write letters to the editor bemoaning my tragic situation and my wish to end it all. I’ll post my writings to this blog and before long, beautiful women will be knocking down my door in their determination to give me a reason to live. I should have thought of this sooner.
I actually thought the movie was an even-handed treatment of the euthanasia issue. I used to be really critical of people with disabilities who chose suicide; it was one of the main theses of my law journal article. My views have become more nuanced over time. I don’t think it’s my place to judge another person’s quality of life. What may be tolerable for one person may be unbearable for another. I’m not advocating suicide as an acceptable solution, but I’m also increasingly wary of the indignant, self-righteous tones of some disability activists who scream bloody murder when someone decides not to live with a disability. I’d like to see a little less pontificating and a little more honest discussion. A lot of these activists seem to gloss over the genuine struggles that accompany living with a disability. We all have our personal tipping points; that point where we say, “Enough. No more.” I don’t exactly know what mine is. I don’t think any of us know. But I think it’s the height of arrogance for any of us to pretend that we know when someone has a decent quality of life. The people who tell me they’d rather die if they were in my position and the people who argue that the Terry Schiavos of the world should go on living are equally presumptuous