Answer Happy

It can be tricky to discuss and analyze the problem: under whatconditions is autonomy lost? There has to be a "bias" in FAVOR ofautonomy: it would have to take a lot to lose it! Autonomy is basedon rational thinking but, of course, it does not mean that one hasto be, let's say, a mathematical genius or even to have some highIQ to be autonomous: that would be a very different - elitist -theory, as you can tell. On the other end of the spectrum, it ischallengingto determine when someone does not have autonomy: itmust be a matter of lacking the ability to think and make choices -and it has to be quite advanced and significant a loss, but,obviously, we cannot quantify this. So, some interesting casesemerge. Share your thoughts and consider a couple of cases: what doyou think?Is someone who is refusing emergency life-saving treatment tobe automatically considered as lacking autonomy - because "you haveto be very mentally ill" to do this?What about someone who contemplates suicide?This is a strangely "hard" case, to which people usuallyrespond in a way that "misses" some aspects of this case: somereligious devotees refuse life-saving treatment for their children.Is this covered under autonomy?