Schools Ponder Role As Child Nears Death

[fierceawakening]

from BFP, Bint, MissCripChick, and others:

Schools Ponder Role As Child Nears Death

As the school bus rolled to a stop outside her Lake County home, Beth Jones adjusted the bright yellow document protruding from the pouch of her daughter's wheelchair, making sure it was clearly visible.

In bold letters it warned, "Do Not Resuscitate."

The DNR

Comments

[amberite]

Argh. I wrote this really long comment, and it got lost somewhere between China and LJ.

So I'll try to condense the essentials.

I didn't want to talk about my opinions, but it sounds like keeping mum translates in internet-ese to "we can take body parts out of someone at will". And I don't want to be saying that, even by omission.

So: It's definitively not OK to take out someone's uterus without their permission. At the time the whole debate came up, I was processing the fact that puberty had been done to me without my permission. People can experience this as a violation also.

I stayed out of it then, and tried to stay out of it now, because I don't feel comfortable with anything that remotely smacks of deciding another person's fate. It's a non-opinion-opinion. It doesn't provide a rationale or prescription for moral guidance. Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.

This case has convinced me you were quite right about the Ashley case; that the essentials of the thing were wrong, and set a very bad precedent. Hence my use of the past tense for my former perceptions.

My intention was to be supportive, not triggering. Sorry. I have the feeling you often see me as adversarial... My own bad habits; when all I have to say is 'yay team!' I usually keep quiet. I sometimes offer opinions here that are sidelong to yours, or conflicting. I didn't intend to do so at this time.

[fierceawakening]

This case has convinced me you were quite right about the Ashley case; that the essentials of the thing were wrong, and set a very bad precedent. Hence my use of the past tense for my former perceptions.

Okay.

I agree with you that puberty can be violating. I just don't think that we know when it will be for someone.

[amberite]

I just don't think that we know when it will be for someone.

Yeah, I don't think so either.

Thanks for responding. I'm beating myself up rather much right now for a variety of reasons, and not in the fun way.

[fierceawakening]

No problem. It's often hard to tell *why* someone says they can see both sides -- there are often really weird assumptions about PWD, parents, parents' authority, intentions, and behavior wrapped up in that.

[amberite]

Geez. Yeah. I just wanted to say something from a personal-non-agendaed angle about the puberty thing, couldn't figure out how to articulate it without making it look agendaed, and deleted it from my original comment.

I guess I forgot that I could be read a number of different ways.

I think arguments end up being about formulating our own identities, a lot of the time.

I almost never identify with the parental figure in a situation. Partly because I don't want to have children; partly because the experience of being powerless and jerked around (while my older friends told me they wished they were young) is still something I'm working through.