Illich on Health Care

I was scouting around tonight looking for Ivan Illich's writings on renunciation and found this on health, illness and mortality and the freedom to address these on our own terms:

Illich states the following:

"I demand certain liberties for those who would celebrate living rather than preserve "life:"

- the liberty to declare myself sick;

- the liberty to refuse any and all medical
treatment at any time;

- the liberty to take any drug or treatment of my
own choosing;

- the liberty to be treated by the person of my
choice, that is, by anyone in the
community who feels called to the practice of healing, whether that person be an
acupuncturist, a homeopathic physician, a neurosurgeon, an astrologer, a witch
doctor, or someone else;

- the liberty to die without diagnosis.

I do not believe that countries need a national "health" policy, something given to their citizens. Rather, the latter need the courageous virtue to face certain truths:

- we will never eliminate pain;

- we will not cure all disorders;

- we will certainly die.

Therefore, as sensible creatures, we must face the fact that the pursuit of health may be a sickening disorder. There are no scientific, technological solutions. There is the daily task of accepting the fragility and contingency of the human situation. There are reasonable limits which must be placed on conventional "health" care. We urgently need to define anew what duties belong to us as persons, what pertains to our communities, what we relinquish to the state. ..."

We need to ask ourselves in other words what we have received in return for ceding power and vast resources to a medical monopoly that orders so much of our lives.

Freedom, as Illich so passionately argued, begins with renunciation of needs. How much are we enslaved by our need to escape the limits of fragility and mortality? And how much of life do we miss in trying to perfect and prolong it?