So we’ve done taxes to death this week, with all this tariff talk, so we need to concentrate on death. Ok, I never promised ‘cheery’, some might find it positively morbid, but it needs to be discussed. Not the actual deaths themselves, but the attitudes and moral relativity of two particular kinds of deaths.

Firstly there’s abortions. I think it safe to say; no-one likes a dead baby. And the current debate is not even about whether a 12 week foetus is actually ‘a baby’ or not. It’s about America’s favourite topic; freedom of speech. An abortion clinic protester was convicted of something or other because she was standing near an abortion clinic with a sign saying: ‘here to talk; if you want’. Which even I, as a massive proponent of ‘pro-choice’, think is actually rather touching. She didn’t say: YOU’RE GOING TO DIE IN HELL YOU BABY MURDERING BITCH!!!, nor even JESUS DIED TO SAVE YOUR BABY AND NOW YOU’RE DROPPING HIM ON THE GOAL LINE!! But they arrested her. In case she unbalanced someone’s mental health or presumed upon their gender or something, though granted, presumptions where pregnancies are concerned are probably valid. For me, much as I disagree with this ‘heart in the right place’ woman, for interfering with someone else’s legal right to a termination, she has every right to peacefully protest. She wasn’t arguing against the right to an abortion; she was saying that if someone is having last minute doubts, I’ll counsel you. To arrest her exemplified most of what is wrong with the police today. They don’t think. To actually convict her because ‘she might affect mental health’ in some way, is plainly moronic and cow-towing to the prevailing imbecilic zeitgeist.

The second deaths are the sought-after ones. The Assisted Suicides. This is also tricky. From a moral perspective. And yet comes into the category of ‘choice’. People who want to choose their death when faced with irreversible pain and suffering to an inevitable and horrible end. The arguments against are always (other than by religious people, obviously. They revere life and the bible normalises pain, suffering and agony, even treats it as heroic and the best way to serve The Lord) that “I’m disabled and I still have a lot to offer and don’t want to be die just because I’m not perfect and haven’t got long to live”. The answer to which is: then don’t. It’s fucking CHOICE. Yet again. And if you don’t wish to terminate yourself, having such a facility in place won’t force you to do it. Just because there’s a petrol station on the corner doesn’t mean you have to fill up. Ok, I appreciate the moral differential with that particular parallel, but at £1.40 a litre, there’s not much morality in petrol stations either.

Basically. Just give people the right to choose. No-one’s being forced into anything. That’s grown up. If others with to protest about it, that’s fine too. Everyone else, including the police, should just fuck off and let everyone get on with it. Including, perhaps especially, JD Vance, who is ‘appalled’ at the intrusion against freedom of speech for the anti-abortion protester who was arrested. I wonder if Mr Vice-Prez would have been so vociferously outspoken in favour of a Climate protester, or an anti-oil one, or any vaguely left-wing value or any protester in a proper duffle coat?

Happy Saturday; its good to be alive

A xxxx