I'm not being glib when I say I don't know that I'm all that concerned with what would happen to my body if I were to become severely brain damaged. After a certain point of incapacitation, I think being allowed to die is the preferable option, but if someone feels there's hope enough to hang on to whatever's left, I guess that'd be fine too. I'm not sentimental; whatever happened, I figure I wouldn't be around to see it.
But under no circumstances would I ever want images of my atrophied body beamed around the world so I can become the unwitting poster girl for either side of a divisive political debate, so people can start an insipid ribbon campaign in my name, so politicians can use my family's pain for leverage, so people who never met me can argue about whether my tendency to track shiny things with my eyes indicates the presence of my buried soul or the helpless, one-off spasms of what's left of my synapses.
That's about the most disgusting, least dignified fate I can think of. And meanwhile, where's the hand-wringing and emergency legislation when someone, say, dies of something treatable because she couldn't afford health care?
