And speaking of Dame Esther Rantzen, about whom I wrote earlier, how about the topic of assisted dying? Nicky Campbell’s Radio 5 Live phone in today, which I didn’t listen to, was all over it. Some people, I’ll bet, were saying people should be allowed to end their own lives on their own terms if they want to and others, always, it seems to me, religious nutcases saying the opposite. I’ve got a very simple message to those who don’t agree with assisting dying: you don’t have to be assisted. It’s your choice to die in pain, misery or worse still not even know you’re dying.
You get the same thing with all sorts of issues. Abortion? You don’t agree with it? Then don’t have an abortion. Gay marriage? You don’t agree with it? Then don’t marry a gay person. How hard can it be to understand these simple facts?
When it comes to assisted dying, there should be safeguards which seem to work everywhere else. Introduce safeguards and let people choose when to die when and if their lives are becoming intolerable. I honestly can’t see why there’s anything even vaguely controversial about it.
People should be free to do the things they want to do, which includes the examples above in the same way that people should be free not to. And the latter should help things along by minding their own business.
