The Sea Inside and the Right to Die

My wife and I watched a very heart-rending movie this evening called The Sea Inside, which is based on the fight of Ramon Sampedro, a quadriplegic who was confined to a bed for almost 30 years, to end his own life. I will say that the subtitles in no way hindered the vehement pro-choice message of this Spanish movie. I thought the movie was well-made and I liked the couple of twists and turns it took with the plot, although I enjoyed The Barbarian Invasions, a French-made movie dealing with the same subject, a little more for the spirited repartee between its odd and fascinating characters.

On the subject of assisted suicide, I'm all for it. I believe it's a personal choice if a person doesn't want to go on living, and I think it absolutely should be legal. If we truly lived in a secular society this would be a non-issue; this was one of the main points put forth—to no avail—by Sampedro's lawyers. Too bad a ghoul like Kevorkian happens to be the right-to-die community's de facto mouthpiece. We need someone like Pamela Anderson...hey, it works for PETA.

Anyway, Roger Ebert wrote a good review of the movie.