This seems to be the case, following a call I received yesterday from Ann Winterton MP regarding her motion against the BBC's pro euthanasia bias. What began as four, is still only a paltry ten MPs backing her against very strong opposition.
I am shocked and ashamed of the BBC given how in so many ways Auntie Beeb is a showboat of inclusion and equality, and can claim what seems to be an exemplary employment policy, employing some of the country's most brilliant disabled media and arts people. I have been interviewed a number of times now at the BBC both on television and radio over the years, and they have always been an accessible, respectful place to attend and a pleasure to work with.. so what on earth are they up to?
Has the BBC just got really mixed up about what a right and proper equality argument is here.. or at the very least have they forgotten their commitment to telling all sides of a story? Why aren't they talking to their own staff, some of whom are colleagues of mine and campaign against this kind of deathly propaganda in their spare time?!
We want equality. That means an equal right to live, and an equal right to justice, fundamentally, before all else. If suicide clinics are to happen - if people are to be killed by physicians - create them for everyone and give us equal access. If people don't like that idea, think carefully about why and you might find the reasons why they would be a terrible idea are shared amongst all humans, not just those with physical health.
So very many disabled people and sick people already are in poverty and fighting for the services we need to stay alive, because we know at least as much as anyone else how precious each day is. We also know what it is like to also struggle at the same time, from our direct experience. The government doesn't need more disincentives to putting money into the NHS and Social Care systems. Assisted suicide clinics provide an easy dumping ground for the services overspill and public purse.. but where will they dump the bodies? Do we have space in our cemeteries for all the depressed people whose health and neglect combined lead them to feel life is not worth living? As far as our responsibility towards all citizens equally goes, this lets government and society off the hook.
Do our MPs understand that, we're campaigning for our lives here?
Do they understand that we depend on the media, most of all public funded media, to keep up to date with modern times and promote equality and respect for disabled people, instead of reporting in ways which devalue our lives, our very existence?
Do the BBC and our MPs understand that people's suicidal feelings are contributed to by the public perception of who we are, which in the main is dictated by media and government? "Our blood on your hands!" is an old D.A.N. chant which springs to mind here.
I hear the public support assisted suicide based on their horrified imaginings. Not much of a surprise really, they are being given creative material by the BBC.. and others.. but we're not paying the others.
If you imply enough times someone would be better off dead, exhibit enough times they do not have an equal status to others, that they can be murdered 'for their own good' or 'helped' to commit suicide and their killer will walk free.. what have we to live for? If we give people a Final Solution instead of a Survival Kit, what chance have people got to be a valued part of this society?
Not so very long ago, the Nazis executed a campaign of exterminating disabled people. It began slowly at first.. by showing films in cinemas of people being euthanised to put them out of their misery.. by telling the public they could never live like this, how it's for the good of their families and the state to alleviate such a burden, such suffering, by having their own family members killed. Once the public were used to this idea, and most people considered defective had been rounded up for killing or experimentation, then they began killing millions of others too.
If we legalised state approved killings, we have the mechanisms to make it all happen quicker here, after all, the public are already convinced they'd all want to die if they were like us, judges, juries and the Director of Public Prosecutions are happy to allow our killers to walk free. These days we have public funded TV streaming into almost every home in the nation - repeating the message that physician assisted suicide and mercy killings are what is needed because some lives are not worth living.
Guess what? It's utter horse s**t. Most people, even with the same conditions as the articulate few poster children for Dignitas, want to live as long as they can because it's a natural human instinct. And know what? Those of us who weren't born this way probably in the main thought the same as the BBC.. until we learned quite how resilient humans are, how strong our will is, to not only survive, but flourish, from real life experience.
The BBC is a major contributor at the moment to spreading prejudice and a portraying a general suicidal atmosphere amongst our people which is a downright lie. They have squashed the voices of the majority of severely sick and disabled people who want to live. We'd have drowned / choked / unmedicated / overmedicated ourselves to death by now by the thousands if we didn't, easy peasy - there would be an epidemic! *Almost* every one of us is perfectly able to kill ourselves if we really wanted to, we don't need the state to sponsor it.
The choice of the few, if made a legal state controlled practice will directly threaten the lives and support services of many others. The pressure to not be a burden is already so strong in society in general, especially for older people who are sick and disabled. Help us. Really, I mean it. But help us live our last days, months, years in dignity, not in the memories of those who care for us.
Maybe our messages to our MPs have helped already, but we need to give the rest of them more encouragement. Ann Winterton says that the best thing we can do to support this motion is keep writing to our MPs to complain about the BBC's heavily biased coverage.
If you are against state controlled physician assisted suicide for sick and disabled people, or allowing people who kill us deliberately to walk free, please write to your MP as a matter of urgency.
(For more information about how to do this, see this action notice / sample letter to give you some ideas, including more information here: http://clairlewis.livejournal.com/14515.h
Fight for the equal right to live, regardless of disability or health status - WRITE TO YOUR MP NOW!
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Comments
And yes, I will write to my MP but it's Maria Eagle so fat lot of good that's going to do.
An interesting angle informing us of the lack of apparent interest from our elected representatives. As chair of RADAR and a disabled person I've posted comments on the recent Panaroma programme and the Dimbleby Lecture. These have been picked up by the Guardian and the The Times. You may also like to know that an organisation called Not Dead Yet with Baroness Jane Campbell as a member are mounting a campaign to try to combat the biased reporting this subject receives. Perhaps you should join and add your support. Best wishes Phil Friend
As for the BBC's understanding of "Disability Equality" they employed an outside agency to write their DE Scheme! Like a stick of rock, "institutional discrimination' runs all the way through.
They both also knew that the likely sentence would be light; if Kay had been able to say to her daughter, "I could get 10 years for this", then Lynn might have accepted that as she would not have wanted her mother to suffer. As it is, judges have been issuing suspended or probationary sentences for assisting suicides in these circumstances for twenty years or more. I think this case shows that the law works and is capable of delivering compassionate outcomes without condoning euthanasia.
30 hours. 30 hours being systematically bumped off is not a merciful death - any other parent would call an ambulance, but Kay finished the job off, badly. I think some people enjoy the sentimentality of the whole thing, frankly.
I do not buy it. Lynn and Kay have both been disgracefully neglected by the state. To take the angle you are taking lets that state off the hook. Naive at best, dangerous at worst - if this is the view of the ME community how terribly dangerous!
FYI also. This case was brought to my attention by people who knew Lynn and her friends, partly because they were shocked and disgusted at the state, the public and ME community's response.
What is happening, what has been happening for yes the last 20 years or so, which we have consistently campaigned against, devalues the lives of all disabled people. Each case like this is another nail in our coffin. It's as much to do with us as ME people gathered together (don't forget there's plenty of ME people in the disabled people's movement too). You're getting your say. We're trying to have ours (but its less fun for the public cos we post up less pictures of fairies and angels).
I was dissatisfied with the Panorama programme as well, not only because of the veiled, but obvious, sentimentality (e.g. the Razorlight-esque soft electric guitar figures throughout) but also because the 30-minute format didn't give them much more time than to interview Kay a few times, have a few brief talks with some dissenting voices on euthanasia, then get back to Kay again. The reason ME was allowed to ruin lives like Lynn's and Sophia Mirza's, and probably others', was left out. The fact that Lynn received very inappropriate treatment, much of it downright abusive (e.g. leaving her to wet the bed because the staff were convinced she really could get up herself), wasn't mentioned.
I don't care for Jeremy Vine at all. He's a sensationalist hack who likes to raise the temperature of any discussion (I've seen this myself on his Radio 2 mid-day talk show).
I've been in contact with a couple of Lynn's friends myself, both of whom have, or had, severe ME. Neither of them had anything but sympathy for Kay. They knew Kay loved Lynn, that she had spent 16 years caring for her and would have spent another, if necessary. Her version of the events you describe as "bumping off" was that she was just trying to make her comfortable and that the "injection of air" didn't happen. Do you think she was lying?