With today’s headlines predictably dominated by my shocking failure to update The Trash Whore Diaries, this comparatively trivial morsel of news may have escaped your attention: ‘Woman, 30, battles for right to die’. Thankfully I am on hand (belatedly, admittedly) to give it the prominence it so richly deserves.
‘A terminally-ill woman began a ground-breaking bid to end her own life yesterday in a legal case which could have implications for hundreds of patients a year’ reports the Press & Journal. ‘Kelly Taylor, 30, who has been given less than a year to live, argues that medics are breaching human rights laws by refusing to provide treatment which will lead to her death. She is attempting to compel doctors to vastly increase her morphine dose to sedate her into a coma-like state.’ Where’s Harold Shipman when you need him, huh? It would appear that this woman has become so accustomed to sponging off the NHS she expects them not only to feed her - by dint of a nasal tube - but also to kill her at her behest. Next thing you know, she’ll be asking them to cover the cost of her funeral as well. Oh, hang on a sec… ‘An initial hearing at the High Court in London yesterday heard Mrs Taylor would also be seeking damages under the Human Rights Act.’ So let’s get this straight; she wants them to kill her and then she wants to sue them for not having killed her sooner? Is it any wonder the NHS is in financial meltdown when there are people like Kelly Taylor burning it for every penny it doesn’t have? If she really wants off of this earth so badly, why doesn’t she go ponder the matter in her car…with the engine running and the garage door shut? I mean, I’m gonna hazard a guess here and say that Kelly Taylor isn’t quite as robust as Bruce Willis. In fact given her terminal illness, I’d imagine she’s about as unbreakable as a Shoji paper screen. So why all the hullabaloo over a task so simple that even a terminally ill patient could perform it? Hell, all she needs to do is pull out her feeding tube and she’ll be dead within a week. But then it’s not about the dying, is it? It’s about a cry for attention, just like it is with all would-be suicidees. Let’s cut to the chase here: Kelly Taylor is dying which, sarcasm aside, is pretty shitty. What’s even shittier though is that the world in general hasn’t paid her the slightest bit of notice. You’d have thought the human race could have had the decency to don sackcloth and ashes or at least observe a minute’s silence to commemorate Karen Taylor’s misfortune at being the first person ever to be stricken by a terminal illness, but no, civilisation appears to have selfishly overlooked her plight. So what does Kelly do? She does what any attention-seeker in her position would do; calls up the media and unleashes a two-pronged assault on the NHS, ordering them to kill her and suing them for not having had the decency to do the job sooner. Why, you may be wondering, does Ms Taylor not take matters into her own hands and end her wretched life? (And I mean wretched in a literal - not a pejorative - sense.) Instead, she seems intent on prolonging her suffering by pursuing her case through the courts. Doesn’t that defeat the whole point of dying quickly to ease the pain incurred by a terminal illness? In fairness to the woman, I guess you could reason that in her weakened state she might be physically incapable of committing suicide, and would require the assistance of a third party - i.e the NHS - but you’d be wrong. The fact of the matter is, Kelly Taylor is so accustomed to sponging off the state, she’s become incapable of doing anything for herself. I mean, why bother going to the effort of stockpiling a fatal supply of medication when you can get the NHS to do the job for you and railroad the media into drumming up a few murmurs of sympathy into the bargain?
A few weeks ago, I penned a blog in which I pondered why we, as a society, are loath to speak ill of the dead. Well it would appear that the deceased are not the only ones to be undeservingly feted and sainted, for so are the dying. It’s the only reason I can think to account for why no one has had the sense to tell Kelly Taylor to quit whining and die quietly like every other terminal NHS patient. I’m not mocking her affliction but I am mocking her propensity for afflicting the rest of us with her maladies and malaise. As someone once said, the best things in life are free, and when you happen to be afflicted by a terminal illness, death is the best you can get. For zero pounds and zero pence (or the price of a Bic razor at the very most) an untimely demise can be yours. So why all the fucking about with lawyers and courts and doctors to obtain permission to commit suicide? Did Kurt Cobain seek permission from his fans before he/his wife (delete according to which theory you ascribe to) pulled the trigger? Did Sylvia Plath seek permission from the gas board before sticking her head in the oven? No. So why should Kelly Taylor - no matter how heart-rending her plight may be - involve the media - and by proxy you and I - in a matter that is no one’s god-damn business except hers? Life might be sacred, but death, it would seem, is profane.