tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192880237210210589.post6773995583797464375..comments2023-09-26T12:07:08.787-04:00Comments on Plain Error: Do prisoners have the right to starve themselves?IPF Staffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742411849568590705noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192880237210210589.post-14656510495950086612009-01-27T23:31:00.000-05:002009-01-27T23:31:00.000-05:00Count me among the civil libertarians on this one....Count me among the civil libertarians on this one. Surely one should have the right to starve oneself for political reasons. The "Hunger Strike" is a hallowed form of political protest -- a core nonviolent method of producing political change. Gandhi. Bobby Sands. Binyam Mohammed al-Habashi.<BR/><BR/>More broadly, one does and should have a privacy and personal autonomy right to decline the ingestion of things into one's body. Rochin v. California (1952), 342 U.S. 165. <BR/><BR/>But I would go even further. At present the law allows the government to step in and manage the lives of those who pose an immediate threat to themselves and others. The first half of that standard is among the greatest infringements on personal liberty that there is. Anyone who takes the right to privacy seriously -- including the right to one's body, to abortion, to have sex with other consenting adults (even those of the same sex!) -- ought defend the right of individuals to injure themselves, including the right to end their lives. What could be more central to one's personal autonomy than the right to end one's personhood. Count me among those who see the right to suicide as the most central right of all. <BR/><BR/>The incarcerated necessarily give up certain rights -- most obviously the right to travel freely. But prisoners maintain lots of basic rights, including among others, the right to marriage (Zablocki v. Redhail), the right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment, the right to practice one's religion, the right to medical treatment, the right to access to court, etc. Count me among those who would say that the right to limit one's own food intake is every bit as sacred as any of those rights.Yankee Interloperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14418276850686268261noreply@blogger.com