Duc in Altum

In the sad, but true category, a woman has attempted to starve herself to death. For nineteen days, the 28-year-old English woman, Kelly Taylor, denied herself food in order to put herself to death. However, her hunger strike ended when she decided to eat some apple-puree baby food. She stopped starving herself to death because it was, as you would expect, very painful.

"It has become too uncomfortable and I would not wish what I have been going through on my worst enemy. I feel disappointed in myself. I really wanted to die and that seemed to be my only option. I regret that I have to stop what I am doing because I still want to die. But starvation, as it turns out, is very undignified."

Ms. Taylor suffers from a congenital heart condition known as Eisenmenger Syndrome. It is not a terminal illness, but as a person with the disease ages, the symptoms can worsen and affect the person's mobility.

For ten years, Ms. Taylor has waited for a heart and lung transplant. However, recently doctors removed her name from the list of possible recipients because, they deemed a transplant as too high of a risk for her. Her condition requires that she receive pure oxygen. She is also only able to walk a few steps before she collapses.

Given these circumstances, Ms. Taylor concluded that here restricted life was no longer worth living because she could not contribute anything meaningful to society. Because she did not want to cause her husband any legal problems, she chose to attempt to take her life by starving herself to death. Now that she has failed, she is channeling her efforts to have the law changed which makes assisted suicide illegal.

I am very sorry for this poor woman. She is obviously in a bad way, but she does not understand that her life has meaning simply because she is a human being. She does not need to "contribute" to society in the way that she thinks. In fact, her contribution might be a life lived with great dignity under her tremendously difficult circumstances. It is easy for me to say because I am not in her shoes. However, I know that the answer is not her taking her own life.

Of course, she has contributed to society by exposing the lie which euthanasia advocates promote that being denied food and water is not a painful way to die. Ms. Schiavo did not die a "good death". As this woman experienced, and common sense would tell you, dying due to the denial of basic nutrition is a horrible experience. For example, when people go on hunger strikes, it is to gain sympathy for their cause. If it were not a painful thing to stop eating, there would not be very much sympathy based on a concern for the person's welfare. Perhaps this woman's story will change some minds about this ridiculous notion. In the meantime, say a prayer for Ms. Taylor.

H/T: BlogsforTerri