Brand spanking new

It's a brand spanking new blog.

No baggage, no deep thoughts, no emotional insights. just plain whinge the way everyone likes it. And the best part? I bitch and everybody else HAS to listen. Isn't that a change from being just another voice in the multitudes.

Time to voice my displeasure. Assisted dying's been around for bloody ages and the morons who run the country just refuse to acknowledge it. People just leave the country all the time to off themselves because British law makes it impossible to pass in peace even if you're in the very latest stages of a terminal illness, in tremendous pain and suffering and crippled to the point where you can't even lift a finger. The BBC's making a big issue out of Dr Anne Turner because she left a video diary of her last moments... Well, that and she had the showmanship to invite the BBC along to her suicide. How morbid is that? Then again, what difference is it going to make?! The assisted dying bill which the reporters are speaking of so highly was already dumped out of parliament last session and this despite the major alterations made to it by every single parliamentarian who wanted to appear sympathetic to sufferers yet would recoil to the very fibre of their being at the thought of allowing someone to die... not out of the goodness of their hearts mind you, rather at the thought that voting for the passage of the bill unchanged would kill his base of voters.

Some reverend was on the telly saying that we should convince these people that there was still some good in their lives, that they were still useful to society. In order to protect the sanctity of human life... hey sounds good doesn't it? But how sacrosanct is human life exactly? The European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms seems to say a right to life is non-derogable and sacrosanct in every way shape and form possible... but scratch at the surface and the holes start appearing. It's apparently illegal to assist people in committing suicide... even helping someone onto a plane could be considered assisting a suicide. Oh just so you know, suicide IS NOT A CRIME but assisting in one is. Logic please? Police rarely ever use their power to prosecute people assisting their loved ones to commit suicide. It's the stupid ones who try to get immunity for their loved ones before the fact. The smart ones just off themselves and let the police turn a blind eye. If it works, why fix it eh? Well, let's see... Dr Turner's son travelled with her to Switzerland right? If he had any part in buying her air ticket, helping her on the plane or even carrying her bags on the way to the Dignitas clinic... guess what? He's assisted a suicide. I'd like to see him placed in custody the moment he gets back to the UK for a criminal act. Come to think of it... anybody who helped her on the trip to Switzerland knowing her intention would have assisted a suicide. BUT WAIT... nothing will happen to them! Why? Because the law ISN'T BLOODY WORKING. There is too much discretion given to the police in assisted dying cases and, although I believe it's generally been applied widely, that's just not the way it's meant to work. Think about this, Anne Turner was not the first... she was just the loudest about it. So much for protecting the sanctity of life. Fix the law, fix the uncertainty. After all, law is meant to be certain.

Back to the good, pro-life reverend... does he know exactly what patients going through cerebral palsy feel? Ask Diane Pretty whether she thought that there was any way she would feel useful (okay, fine she suffered from motor neurone disease but hey, same effect yes?). Loved, most definitely. Useful? She couldn't do anything for herself. She couldn't walk, clothe or feed hereself... she couldn't even get on to a plane to fly out of the country where she could pass in peace rather than suffer through years of court battles only to fail and be forced to die ignominously. Here I take a quote from BBC:

"There has been a real deepening of a relationship, or things that have gone wrong in the past have been put right," he said.

"Who knows what good things can come out of the last phase of a person's life?"

WHAT deepening of relationship? In final stage Alzheimer's that person's not going to remember you. What good can come from a drooling, dribbling body? Oh wait... I forget that Christian philosphy sees doing good as doing stuff that make you feel like you've done good. I'd sooner take a bullet through the brain than take care from someone who's doing it to make themselves feel better.

If I started losing my memory and regressing into childhood I think it would be a mercy to relieve me of suffering. I want to be in full possession of my faculties or under the ground. If I start drooling like an idiot and have to have my son/daughter/relatives wiping my arse for me, nothing in the world would convince me that I could be of any possible use or had any reason to live on. Family would miss me but leave me dignity. I wouldn't call leaving me drooling in a bed waiting to die a mercy in any way shape or form. Shut the fuck up and pass the assisted dying bill please... give people an option to pass with a shred of self-respect and dignity.