Your Life, Your Responsibility -- Prompt 35

According to the article Arelia Taveras' fate is totally her fault. She was the one to originally put her self in the situation where she could become addicted to gambling. She chose to go into the casinos and played the games, no one made her, and she is responsible for the results of her actions.

I don't think that there is a basis for a lawsuit in Ms. Taveras' story. The casino was not responsible for her choice of pass time or her bad gambling skills. Ms. Taveras' suing the casinos is rejecting her personal responsibility. The casino could have/should have noticed and attempted to stop her, but it was not their responsibility to keep her from gambling.

In a situation like this, personal responsibility ends when she is unconscious. She chose her way and put the time and effort into her hobby. Someone would not sue if the became addicted to making model airplanes and spent millions of dollars "compulsively" (or at least I hope not). Also another example is: a doctor required to gain consent from his patient before he is allowed to treat her, unless she is unconscious. Similar in this case, Ms. Taveras is responsible for her actions until she totally looses consciousness and is unable to control herself.


If I were asked to give Ms. Taveras advice on rebuilding her life I would first and foremost tell her to not start anything that might be addictive (drinking, smoking, or gambling). She needs to get in control of her life and find something (preferably God) to fill the void that is causing her to seek after crazy amusements like gambling. Finally she needs to take responsibility for her actions and live with the results of what she has done.