Frightening the horses, but nobody else

It seems the island’s most demented pro-lifers are up to their old tricks.
Judging from http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/renowned_lecturer_to_give_euthanasia_talk_1_3213057 they’re planning to scare some horses at Stepford Central next Saturday. Mostly elderly ones who don’t get out much or read newspapers, I suppose.
Friends who know I played a major role in Pat Kneen’s momentous Manx Right-To-Die campaign a few years back pointed this out, thinking I would froth at the mouth or at least pen a letter to the papers. The truth is, it doesn’t concern me, and it also shouldn’t worry anyone who wants Manx law changed to let terminally ill folk choose their end.
But on the principle that I should show at least polite interest in such nonsense, this (see http://www.johnling.co.uk/ ) is the chancer who’ll be trying to put baseless fears into vulnerable minds. This (see http://www.cis.org.uk/resources/interviews/john-ling ) explains a little more about where he’s coming from and who his friends are, and this (see http://www.christian.org.uk/pdfpublications/map_jan_2007.pdf ) is the kind of obscurantist twaddle he produces, and for what audience.
The funniest thing is, he can’t even sell this guff to some of them.
Today I discovered that Ling also tried, but failed, to get some of his nonsense published in one of the UK’s most rabid evangelical rags. As these awful papers usually jump at the thought of a contributor who can even demonstrate a three figure IQ, never mind an academic background, this was quite a stunt.
The Manx cabal of LIFE are no threat either. Funnily enough, only a year or so ago they managed to annoy both local doctors and even chemists by kicking off about one of Ling’s other obsessions, the so-called ‘morning-after-pill’.
I have it on good authority that GPs got most irate when the closet pro-lifer then running the health service (as opposed to the openly pro-lifer who runs it now) tried to foist some very dodgy LIFE literature on them with the apparent intent that they should both read it and take it seriously. When LIFE then tried to ‘suggest’ to local pharmacists that they should refuse to cooperate on grounds of ‘conscience’ (something they picked up from CARE’s similar campaign with registrars on civil partnerships) they just got another flea in the ear.
Maybe both parties (having a more than tabloid understanding of the subject matter) were just so underwhelmed by the Ling argument as sponsored by the Christian Institute featured above that they now avoid anything associated with LIFE, or other simpletons. Leaving the pro-lifers (such an innacurate term, by the way, for misanthropic know-nowts) to gather what small change they can from other churchgoers who have nothing better to do this Saturday.
Meanwhile, the rest of us can just do something better in peace.

Sick survey, dead loss

This week’s local press prominently featured a lump of astroturf planted by parasites on the local health sector. If you’d rather read this pack of lies in the original form just go to
http://www.gov.im/lib/news/dhss/isleofmanendofli.xml.
On 10th December, in a piece entitled Isle of Man ‘End of Life Care Project’ set for launch, some of those who contribute most to the sum of Manx human misery when folk die told us that:“The Department of Health and Macmillan Cancer Support have joined forces on a new initiative aimed at improving end of life care on the Isle of Man.
The two year project will work with patients, carers, health and social care professionals and the voluntary and faith sectors on the Isle of Man, to produce an agreed end of life care strategy and to develop an implementation plan for improving end of life care across a wide range of life limiting conditions. “
Which probably sounds very impressive to an innocent reader, especially if they or folk around them are likely to die in the near future.
The con artists continue: “The Isle of Man End of Life Care Strategy will aim to identify what people’s preferences might be at the end of life and examine existing health, social care and voluntary support systems that will enable people to die in the place of their choosing. “
That is a bare faced lie.
To understand why, consider these three things.
Firstly, in the life of the current Manx parliament there will be an attempt to introduce a Bill on assisted dying.
Secondly, in the last two decades, care of the island’s terminally ill has left the hands of the public health service and gone to an ugly coalition of private and pseudo-charitable business interests. They have a tidy little racket going whereby the lives of the terminally ill are spun out as long as possible, and each painful unit is costed out at the maximum possible rate to vultures ranging from aromatherapists and other unqualified floggers of unregulated alternative woo-woo through to those with some semblance of professionalism but who also, in practice, do little more than pat semi-corpses on the head while extracting the contents of their wallets. If you’ll excuse the pun, it is one sick business.
Thirdly, the current Health Minister is a pro-lifer. To be fair, he is absolutely open about this and, for example, lists his membership of CARE (Christian Action for Research and Education) amongst his parliamentary interests. He holds his views and expresses them as a Christian, not a medical expert, and, to my certain knowledge, has not taken a penny from any company or individual which benefits financially from the current status quo. In that alone he is head and shoulders above many of his fellow political layabouts, whose inability to, for example, award a government contract without a skiing holiday, ‘fact-finding mission’ to exotic countries, seat on the board of a company when they retire from politics or (in the most extreme 1980’s cases) holiday homes in sunnier climes is a national disgrace that puts us on a par with their worst Irish role models.
Note also that the entire pseudo-project has been underwritten, not by government, but by one of the bogus health charities with most to lose if dying people were able to get the deaths they actually want, not ‘choose’ from a menu of overpriced, whimsical nonsenses, and that it will be conducted by an employee of a faith-based partner in crime.
While we’re at it, we should also consider that vacuous fluffy quote from Cicely Saunders, founder of the UK’s hospice con. In order to understand the true mentality and morality of Saunders, it is only necessary to know that, in 1981, she won the Templeton Prize. For those who don’t know, the founders of the Templeton Prize (until 2001 known as the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion) intended to emulate or even dwarf the prestige of the Nobel prizes. The only way in which they truly outdid the Nobels was to offer more cash. Otherwise, it’s just an open £1,000,000 bribe to any public figure, preferably with a scientific/medical/philanthropic or quasi-scientific/medical/philanthropic background to come up with reasons why such fields should be dominated by religious, not rational, thinking, or to muddy the waters in such a way that it is impossible to go about those disciplines without one leg in a barbed wire garter. Once you know that, the year after Saunders, Billy Graham got it you can appreciate what 24 carat crap the whole deal is, what kind of moral pygmy takes the loot and why you should dismiss anything they ever said about anything.
My advice to anyone who is approached by this survey is, firstly, insist on written communication, not a verbal interview, and secondly ask if assisted dying is on the menu for discussion. If it isn’t, then, say you don’t think it is a true research project into what dying people and their friends and relatives want and refuse to co-operate further. And make sure you get all this in writing.
It is important that you do this.
Firstly because this survey is a deliberate attempt to only allow participants to give answers those behind the scam have pre-decided, in order to pretend it is ‘what the public wants’ and further excuse the lack of choice and theft of public funds.
Secondly, because this survey will work itself into the arguments used by such parasites to derail an assisted dying bill.
Thirdly, because when they do all this, it is important that we can challenge such nonsense, and provide evidence of the way in which our attempts to give our true opinions were blocked by those, in theory, charged with gathering such opinion.
Bogus research is a growing industry in Manx government circles, increasingly used to excuse the most outrageous waste and theft of taxpayer money. It is our civic duty to stop it dead.

Not dead, just indolent

In case anyone was seriously worried, no, I’m not dead, and no, I haven’t given up blogging.
Just been a busy month with other things, and others had more need of my time or this computer.
Still, I should at least give a plug to the inaugural meeting of a Manx dying with dignity group. Following a well attended talk by a Death with Dignity speaker a couple of months back(hosted by the Political Action Group) around 20 folk showed enough interest to take things further.
Things get started at the small meeting room of the Archibald Knox, Onchan, on Thursday 2nd December at 2.30. That’s the flashy pub behind Onchan Shoprite if you don’t know the area, and so, yes, there’s adequate parking space next door to the venue. Quintin Gill, who was one of two MHKs behind the Tynwald committee which reported on similar matters a few years back, has agreed to speak on where things are at present.
As the organisers readily admit, not the best time for all who might like to get involved, but it’s a start. Look out for press reports, and if they’re not as full as they should be, I’ll do my best to fill in some gaps here.

Assisted dying - the debate comes back to Mann

I saw a familar figure talking nonsense in the press recently.
I’ve known Peter Murcott for years – ever since the years when he set up a Manx branch of Mary Whitehouse’s mob, then when he ran a Keep Sunday Special campaign, and so on ever since. He’s one of those dependable godbotherers who can be guaranteed to put up an argument on any moral issue, and I almost admire him.
He must realise he’s unfashionable, he must know people snigger at some of his views but he doesn’t seem to care. He gets flattened time and time again in debates – at least in the view of those who listen long enough to hear the arguments and evidence. Even Manx government ministers and civil servants cringe when he kicks off in public - and very few of them display intellect, honesty or open-mindedness.
This time he seems to be the only one willing to put the contrary view in a local debate on assisted dying with Jo Cartwright from Dignity in Dying. He sets out his stall at http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Should-we-be-allowed-to.6537771.jp .
Poor man doesn’t seem to have new arguments since the retired Oxford psychologist Jeff Garland flattened him amicably enough in a Manx Radio debate a few years back, when a Tynwald Select Committee was gathering evidence for a possible Bill. But Peter’s a tryer, we should give him that.
The debate is being put on by Positive Action Group, at 7.30pm on September 27 at the Manx Legion Club in Douglas. More details on their website at http://positiveactiongroup.org/index.html .

Dignity in laughter

I see Dignity in Dying now have a blog (see sidebar).
It’s written by James Harris, their Head of Communications, and I’m glad to see he seems to have about as much respect for so called ‘pro lifers’ as I do.
He has already incurred the wrath of the Reverend George Pitcher, who writes religious drivel for something that passes itself off as a newspaper, though the only practical use seems to be as incontinence pads for senile former Mosleyites.
Pisspot tried to call Dignity in Dying out on his blog, then pretend they were too in awe of his arguments to answer them. The truth is far simpler.
The Daily Telegraph has a shit website which can’t handle comments, and a particular habit of losing them if they go against the retarded logic of the few Torygraph readers who can switch a computer on. I know from experience, and I've heard the same story from others who wasted time battling the antediluvian system to record a view.
As Pisspot lacked the courage to print Harris’s replies to his ‘questions’, Harris repeats them and invites the dullard cleric to respond in term.
Elsewhere he also has fun reporting an overwhelming defeat for the most vacuous UK pro-life pseudo-charity at a recent UCL debate. Then he has even more fun reporting SPUC's pathetic attempt to diss DiD in their own report of the debate - which completely neglects to mention that they were not so much defeated as left for dead.
Considering their vegetable mentality, maybe it’s time SPUC changed that acronym to SPUD, or how about…..
Well, I quite like James’s own comment actually:
“SPUC are a pro-life organisation who have a lot to say about assisted dying, abortion and sex education (they are in need of a name change, perhaps the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, Hormonal Teenagers, and Terminally Ill People who are Unaware that Suffering brings you closer to your Maker: SPUCHTTIPUSM).”

Pat's legacy

I had some sad news this afternoon.
Pat Kneen, widow of the Manx Death With Dignity campaigner Patrick Kneen, died recently.
I shared some history with the Kneens, as I was secretary to their campaign. Indeed I also had to campaign for charges of assisting a suicide to be dropped against Pat. They were scary days, as my job wasn’t too secure either, but sometimes things come along which have to be done, and this was one of them.
Pat really was the unlikeliest political campaigner I’ve ever met. While Patrick had a long background in the Manx Labour Party which immunised him to the lies, backstabbings, bigotry and general corruption of Manx life, Pat was a genteel retired schoolteacher who only moved here when they met and married, after both had been widowed once.
Not the kind of person you expect the police to come for mob-handed in a dawn raid. And not the kind of person who could have served a decade in jail if bigotry and corruption had triumphed, as it usually does over here.
Shortly after Patrick’s death, before the real nastiness kicked off, she told me and another friend that the hate, ignorance and dishonesty of local evangelicals towards Patrick’s polite, public-minded efforts had made her mind up.
It may have been silly things like Hospice staff refusing Patrick (who ran the islands leading cancer support group at the time) a chance to sit in their garden after an exhausting session at Nobles Hospital. Or maybe the anonymous midnight phonecalls saying, in a distinctly threatening tone, they would be ‘prayed for’.
Whatever, but she was hopping mad, and a week or two after Patrick’s funeral had made her mind up. This tiny lady was not going to let priests and politicians bury her husband’s work by sheer apathy.
What happened next was totally unexpected. The island’s international reputation sank to a new low because of it, though I’m proud to be amongst the few that showed the world we’re not all scum. You can read about all that at http://onlinejournal.org/Commentary/092405Hartill/092405hartill.html.
Still, we won, had some fun doing it, and may have invented a whole new style of campaigning in the process. On the other hand, Pat Kneen was (unsurprisingly) so drained by the whole thing she upped sticks and never came back to the island, though she never forgot my family and sent cards regularly.
She’ll be missed, but her legacy to the folk I love most is a simple but effective message.
Don't get serious. Get happy.
Laugh ignorance off the planet.

Mind your own business, make your own choice

I was intrigued to see veteran assisted suicide campaigner Michael Irwin apparently attacking a fellow campaigner, Philip Nitschke, in the Torygruff (see
http://www.secularism.org.uk/go.php?id=109917&url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5299634/Suicide-expert-turns-on-Dr-Death.html).
I have to declare an interest here. Pat Kneen, the Manxman whose death caused the attempted prosecution of Michael Irwin and Pat’s widow, was a good friend. That’s why I was secretary of Pat’s Manx Death with Dignity campaign, and that’s why I know Michael Irwin personally.
In fact, I gladly collaborated with Michael again last year on a campaign to ‘road test’ a model Irish Living Will. In return for Manx people commenting they got a template to take to a Manx advocate and try and get something which will at least offer minimal protection in the absence of a Manx equivalent of the UK’s Mental Capacity Act.
Ironically, one reason I was involved was the Kneens weren’t up on computers or the internet, although the subsequent campaign was greatly aided by being able to receive and pass information off-island quickly, so they needed help there. The other was my straightforward and non-negotiable libertarian belief that anything that consenting adults do behind closed doors which doesn’t harm others is none of the state’s damned business.
It’s also why I’m slightly suspicious of this report, because I know that Michael always felt staff at the Torygruff disliked him enough to try and trip him up or misrepresent his words and actions. That said, I think the article does fairly represent his stance on the issue.
The thing is, in a funny way both the mainstream ‘for’ and ‘against’ opinion is guided by an old school ‘doctor knows best’ attitude. Michael believes doctors alone ought to be able to act on the informed wishes of terminally ill patients who don’t want to continue living. Pro-lifers say they think doctors shouldn’t ‘play God’, though of course condemning someone to more suffering is playing a god who decides they should, and curiously it also doesn’t seem to apply if UK pro-lifers decide to slip funds to or protect US nutters who bomb abortion clinics or shoot doctors. I make that last claim because, in an exchange with the spokesman of a prominent UK anti-abortion group in the local paper a few years back, I challenged his organisation to openly condemn such murderers and their sponsors; he would not or could not do it.
But the point is, they both believe ‘doctors know best’, and even the ‘pro’ lobby (perhaps unwittingly) tends to favour only terminally ill people from an upper middle class professional background as being capable of taking an informed choice. I doubt Michael Irwin thinks, say, a manual worker dying from an industrial respiratory illness should be able to take his own life or be helped to do so by his workmates.
Michael plays the gentlemanly family doctor to put a case for law change protecting other such gentlemanly types. I like him for it, but Philip Nitschke seems, by comparison, a model of antipodean bluntness, and I like that too.
The truth is, any old Cobber with a computer these days can decide to get the pills over the internet and use them. True, as with dodgy Viagra or ‘vitamin pills’, you might not get what you ordered. But is any of this finally anybody else’s business but your own?
So, I am not about to take sides or condemn either for going about things the way their cultural background taught them works – for them.
On the one hand, I hope, like Michael Irwin, for a more compassionate law. On the other hand, as I don’t believe it was ever the state’s business anyway I absolutely defend those, like Philip Nitschke, who help people make their own choices about their own private lives.

This one is for Pat Kneen

The papers are full of stuff about the assisted suicide programme to broadcast today on Sky. See here http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/dec/10/assisted-suicide-television for example.
Every time this stuff comes up I'm reminded of a life-changing event. Something that changed the way I look at this island forever, and marked the moment when I lost all fear of speaking my mind at all times and hang the consequence.
People forget very quickly that just a few years ago the Isle of Man was at the centre of such discussions, so go here http://onlinejournal.org/Commentary/092405Hartill/092405hartill.html for a reminder.
This piece was translated and read around the world at the time. It's still my recipe for dealing with apparently overwhelming religious prejudice, and bringing about a sea-change in local attitudes.
Don't get serious. Get happy.
Laugh ignorance off the planet.