the brilliantly leaping gazelle

It has been over two months since my last blog, and in that time an awful lot of awful has happened. All of which I have opinions on and some of which I’ll share. But not today.

It is the so called assisted dying bill that will be voted on today in the Parliament I want to discuss. Partly because it will assist more than just the staggering few people able to meet its ridiculous threshold. Partly because it is unutterably obscene that towards the end of the second decade of the 21st Century there is even a debate to be had about this. 

And also, far more importantly, for citizens not to have  the right to die, is the most blatant example of discrimination in Britain today. 

As I understand it, the bill allows that anyone with a terminal illness and has less than six months to live could apply to exercise the rights in it. To do so, they would need two doctors not only to confirm the terminal diagnosis but also confirm their mental capacity to make such a decision. And also to satisfy themselves that no coercion was at work and options regarding palliative care had been explained and rejected. Only then could a High Court judge give approval.  

Really? Just even getting a doctors appointment is enough of a challenge these days but then I suppose if one can afford to take a case to the High Court, going private isn’t a problem. And that’s my first problem with this whole farrago right there. The wholly unnecessary and ultimately self-serving bureaucracy involved. Because no matter what is decided in parliament today, one thing will be certain; the lawyers will be riding first class on the gravy train. 

It will certainly call in at judicial review.  Possibly taking the scenic route via legal challenges and interminable appeals. Then it might call in at the Supreme Court, before heading onward to Europe.  This isn’t the way a properly functioning democracy, one that is at ease with itself should conduct itself. 

But leaving all that aside, the most fundamental issue and one which I think has been overlooked when discussing this issue is age discrimination. Age discrimination that is predicated upon unfairly prioritising the needs of the unborn against those of the undead. One that places a greater value on the the right to life than on the right to die. 

There are no preventative checks that the state places upon being able to have a child, no suitability assessment, no background checks to establish previous criminal behaviour, and no evidence of one’s financial capacity to successfully embark on parenthood.

Why all the hoops and hurdles at one end and largesse we can ill afford at the other. It may seem that I’m contradicting myself or going off on a tangent here but the proposed changes that the assisted dying bill suggests are basically trivial. Around 350 terminally ill people take their own lives every year. That’s nowhere near enough.  We can’t afford the pensioners that are alive today – over 16% of the population – never mind tomorrow. 

According to the Office of Budget Responsibility, last year £142 billions were spent on various pensioner benefits. That’s 5.1% of national income or over 48% of the welfare budget, with absolute the certainty that this number is only getting higher. By 2060, nearly a quarter of the population will be over 65, meaning that the ratio of worker to pensioner will be 2:1.

I understand why the bill only applies to the terminally ill with less than six months to live. That way it has more chance of being passed today, paving the way for more additions later. But assisted dying should be properly seen as an act of civic good, a practical way to put give back by giving up. Living to beyond 80 should be seen as an act of unspeakable selfishness. It baffles me why living to a ripe old age a good thing? Ripe soon turns to rotten. 

And I’m as guilty of age discrimination as it relates to assisted dying as anyone else in assuming that only the old might want to die.  What is so wonderful about life for a 45 year old now to make them think it’s only to get better? All that good weather we’ve been having lately?

If we had a properly functioning democracy this would have all been resolved years ago and the right to die would be a given. If we had politicians who dealt with the electorate as mature adults capable of thinking in the long term, whereas we got was a succession of career driven opportunists unable to look beyond the election cycle. But we don’t have a functioning democracy.  However I might yet be pleasantly surprised. The bill might pass. 

Then we’ll see exactly how democracy functions.