Living wills and the will to Live

There is a huge controversy going on right now about whether a certain individual should be kept alive. It is strangely saddening how the case, which is being fought on sacred grounds of the sanctimony of human life, has consecrated the very dignity of the individual that had been the sole purpose of its genesis. The whimsical removal and reinsertion of the feeding tube has eroded any semblance of respect for the soul that might still be inhabiting the greatly diminished physical body.

The Will to Live is universal....nobody has a right to take away somebody else's Will to Live. Certain countries or political systems take a slightly different stand, preferring to remove individuals whose continued existence in the society threatens the Lives of its other citizens.

How about the Will to Die? Shouldn't someone have as much authority to decide his own death as much as his own life?

Which side of the contention you are on says something about what you think. Are the rights of the individual above the State's? The guardian's? Are there universal rules that govern human life which surpasses law and can only be administered by religion?

How much you are willing to fight for the side you are on says something about how you feel. Maybe you think that individuals can choose their own way to live, and end their lifes. Or maybe your parents, being the people who gave you life in the first place, should be the only ones who have the power to choose to take it away. Or maybe humanity was never given the rights nor the power to its own life.

My own take, is that individuals should be allowed to live the way they want to, and be allowed to die with dignity, if that is what they wish for as well. What if I end up in such a tormented and wretched state of existence that I'm better off dead than alive?

Its a bizarre and ironical thing, this Living Will. A living will , a document cast in paper and ink, to cement an individual's decision to enforce his Will to Die.