Wednesday, August 12, 2009

British Media hysteria over assisted dying


I couldn't resist linking to this post from Paulinus about Polly Toynbee's latest outburst of hysteria, this time on the subject of assisted dying. Apparently, the state 'orders the torture of the terminally ill' on a daily basis. Good heavens, am I missing something? I can't pretend I like hospitals very much (who does) but I never remember tripping over racks and thumb screws when I visited sick friends in British hospitals. Perhaps the doctors and nurses there are just very skilled at hiding them?

I do know that there are patients in hospitals and nursing homes whose pain is not well controlled and this is a genuinely inhumane situation which needs to be properly addressed, but indulging in ludicrous explosions of hyperbole to promote a misguided ideology is never going to deal with any problem.