Well, maybe not so much. Death does not really become anyone. Especially not like this.

I imagine that you are 82 years old. Imagine that you have smoked your entire life. You have one functioning lung because of this. You have macular degeneration - possibly also because of this. Imagine that you are diagnosed with an infection in your blood and the cure for this infection kills all the good bacteria in your blood and essentially causes a bionic infection which is only curable with one of two antibiotics. It will take six weeks to totally eradicate the infections.

Imagine that now you can’t breathe on your own. You are diagnosed with lung cancer and it has traveled to your entire lung - inside and out. You ask your family to keep you alive and to not let you die. You ask for chemotherapy. You are not eligible for chemotherapy and you are given two months to live - give or take. You are now on a constant drip of fentanyl for the pain. You can’t communicate because you have had a tracheotomy and you are too sedated to learn how to communicate with it.

In a moment of lucidity you ask your Middle Child to let you die.

Unfortunately, there are two other children to confer with, and they can’t make it. One of them is trying to gather the money he borrowed from you, so they can bury you - and won’t answer the phone. The Middle Child will not stop the life support without a consensus. No one will blame her for your death, in the end. This is the politics of death. Even in the battle of what is humane and right, we must cover our ass.

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After the fervor of last year’s election and the fight to protect a woman’s reproductive freedom, the noise has sort of died down. I admit that I have been lax in continuing the discussion here. I promise to start writing more about this in the future.

Rest assured the anti-choicers/pro-lifers have NOT relaxed. Not one bit and they certainly never will.

Jill at Feministe has written some really powerful things and I recommend that you read them.