ABSTRACT
The continued receipt of food and water is unarguably fundamental to life. If life is to be afforded value, then denying an individual these essential substrates seems morally indefensible. The terms starvation and dehydration appear to carry signifi cant weight, particularly when associated with death as an outcome. Is this moral or emotional weight? Or both? What should you do when a person is nearing the end of his or her natural life? When that life is close to its inevitable end, does its intrinsic value change or even decrease? Does the imperative to sustain that life through the provision of food and water, by whatever means, become diminished? Is there a point at which there is no imperative to feed and hydrate? How and when can you make the judgement that food and water is no longer necessary?
