I’ve seen someone starve to death and it is ugly.
Lots of cancer patients go out that way when they cannot ingest food... Nor even water... It takes longer than you think.
I’ve seen the long and harrowing and sad decline at the end of cancer too. It broke our hearts to see my young uncle die like that. He was 54. It was 4 years ago,and still makes me cry when I think of how he bravely suffered until he went home to Jesus.
I’ve seen elderly, debilitated, demented patients refuse to eat. At that stage it does not seem like suicide; it seems like the last bit of autonomy left to someone who’s ready to go. They deserve an examination and a swallow eval to make sure there isn’t anything to prevent them from eating if they want to; they deserve fluids if they want, IV fluids if they’ll tolerate it, and a chance to change their minds.
But when you see a wiry old lady ripping out every tube, let her go.