Voluntary Euthanasia

Two things really irritate me about this debate. One will be considered frivolous: this is the multitude of journalists who can't spell euthanasia and furthermore are too lazy to look it up in the dictionary. In particular, the technicians employed by television companies to run those words across the bottoms of our screens because they assume we the viewers are all morons when in fact many of the reporters have something wrong with their jaw joints meaning their mouths won't close properly, like that girl in the Air New Zealand safety video, guaranteed to make you block your ears and squeeze your eyes tightly shut, so we can't understand a word.

The second issue is more serious.

First, just to be clear, I support Act MP David Seymour's bill because it doesn't  allow for an advanced directive and puts the individual clearly responsible for his or her own body, not shoving the responsibility for their death on someone else in the future.

But confusing the debate is this issue of pain.

Why do we suddenly want death to be completely free of pain? Life is not pain free. Birth is not without pain. You can't turn on the television of an evening without the dreadful screaming and yelling of a mother popping out another one (Lord knows why anyone wants to watch this birth-porn) and if it's agonizing for the mother (I've had seven babies, it's like pooing a pumpkin) it must hurt the child being squeezed out like toothpaste.

Then there's a whole life to endure with accompanying vaccinations, headaches, broken limbs, severe diarrhoea where death would be a welcome relief, period pains, and not to forget that worst affliction of all time - MAN FLU!

So on what page, which sentence, in the book of life does it promise us that we have the right to die with no pain?

Sissies.