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Before you die, would you rather pass through a torture chamber or go peacefully at a time of your choosing?
That was the choice Dr Anne Turner — the subject of last night's inspiring BBC film A Short Stay In Switzerland — faced. She was diagnosed at the age of 67 with a rare and untreatable brain disease. Anne knew was going to slowly lose her ability to stand, to speak, to swallow, and to breathe, one by one, month by month.
She didn't want to be locked inside a disintegrating brain, watching herself die. So she went to Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, with her family. They went for a trip on the lakes of Zurich, took in a Beethoven concert, dined in style — and then she swallowed a cocktail of barbiturates and slipped away painlessly.
More of us than ever before are going to face this dilemma. Millions more are living into very old age, and we can be put back together after accident or illness better than ever. Anne's story could become your story.
It is a scandal that you still cannot make the choice she made here in Britain, especially since many dying people can't comfortably travel. Some 82 per cent of us support the right to an assisted suicide. Yet we are being blocked by a small predominantly religious minority, which is hugely over-represented in Parliament. This 18 per cent have an absolute right to prolong their life to its natural end — but they don't have the right to force this choice on the rest of us.
You own your body. You own your life. It should be up to you and your doctor how you end it, not the state. The nightmare-scenarios conjured by the opponents of euthanasia — that it will be a Shipman's charter, scything through the elderly for inheritances or just for fun — have been tested to destruction in the countries that have already legalised euthanasia.
Every case is eagerly investigated by euthanasia's enemies — and they haven't found a single instance where this happens. Nor do doctors think they have been turned into “murderers”. Some 56 per cent of British doctors want to be able to help patients who ask to die.
One day, you or I might be in Dr Anne Turner's situation. Or worse: you could be increasingly immobilised and agonised, surrounded by relatives and doctors who can't legally help you to end it. Do you want to wait until then before — too late —you demand your right to die with dignity?
Previous Brand of humour
As the hysteria over Jonathan Ross is revived yet again — do we really have to do this? — it's fitting that Joe Orton's corpse is twitching back to life. Anybody who thinks bad-taste comedy is the affectation of a depraved younger generation should head for the fantastic production of Loot at the Tricycle, or the new Entertaining Mr Sloane at the Trafalgar Studios starring Matthew Horne.
The gags Orton wrote in the early 1960s are still shocking, ranging over Islam, rape and paedophilia. There were endless shrieks for him to be censored then — and now he is rightly regarded as a classic part of the English canon. I expect Russell Brand to be on the National Curriculum in the 2040s.
Mind the reality gap...
Every morning, I wander into a cratered wreck. At least, that's how it feels when I trudge down into Aldgate East Tube station. More than a year and a half ago, London Underground stripped out all the fittings and ripped down all the posters, leaving only dirty crumbling concrete and eerie low lighting. There are signs assuring us it will all be sorted out in the next month— dated early 2008.
Do the renovations on the Tube operate on the same time-scale as the electronic boards where trains are always one minute away — and take 15?
* This week, Germaine Greer turns 70 — and I want to thank her. There are very few people who manage to crow-bar human freedom a little further open in their lives, but Germaine has. As one of the pioneers of feminism, she has had endless sludge thrown at her. There was even a shameful comedy last year based on the time she was kidnapped. But this is a better country and a better world for her presence — for women, and men. Happy birthday, Germaine.
Reader views (1)
"Previous Brand of humour" What humour ?!?! Ross has responses whenever a female is mentioned - 1. I slept with her, 2. you slept with her and 3. you should sleep with her. How on earth is this comedy - "edgy" or otherwise?? You won't get many laughs from anyone over the age of 13. The only one laughing is Ross - 6 million / year for this 3rd rate tripe! Ditch him now....
- Zady, London, 27/01/2009 00:19
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