The Cathedral bells rang out at six minutes past three today as the people of Liverpool mourned the 96 bodies crushed in the Hillsborough disaster.
There are those who claim that the people of Liverpool are ‘too emotional’ on these occasions, too keen to indulge in ‘mourn porn’ and wallow in self indulgent grief.
Today, however, they have seriously ‘underdone’ the mourn porn.
There was a legacy of Hillsborough, more profound, more chilling, more long lasting, than a ‘mere’ 96 dead. Surprisingly, that legacy has not been mentioned in Liverpool – nor by the main stream press.
The photograph above is of a young, vital, healthy, Anthony Bland.
20 years ago, he was one of the 96 who were crushed. However, he was not crushed to death, he was crushed to within an inch of death, and subsequently diagnosed as being in ‘a permanent vegetative state’.
His parents, loyal, loving, caring people, realising that he could never recover, asked the doctors to cease the treatment that was keeping him alive – in this case the artificial feeding via a tube to his stomach, and artificial hydration. It must have been an intensely painful decision, they knew that he would die without that treatment; they knew also that what passed for ‘continuing to live’ with the treatment was not a life that they could comprehend.
One can only have sympathy for them. In effect, they were asking the Doctors not to interfere with ‘God’s will’.
The House of Lords considered the issue of whether it would be lawful to withdraw artificial nutrition and hydration, in the knowledge that this would lead to Bland’s death. The House of Lords decided that in this case withdrawal of artificial nutrition and hydration would be lawful on the basis that it was not in Bland’s interests for treatment to be continued.
The Bland case was distinguished by the Law Lords from cases of euthanasia on the grounds that withdrawing or withholding life-prolonging treatment was an “omission” not an act. A doctor’s omission could only be culpable in English law if they had a duty to act, and the House of Lords decided that no duty to continue treatment existed in this case.
Thus it came to pass that food and water, those vital elements of life, became ‘medical treatment’ when administered by a Doctor, and a Doctor could be ordered by a court to withdraw that treatment.
Euthanasia, which most people would assume to mean an injection given by a Doctor to painlessly end your life at your wish, is defined by the Government as “a deliberate intervention with the express aim of ending life”, and is unlawful – being starved to death without the benefit of water to moisten your lips is not unlawful if the court orders the Doctor to withdraw medical treatment. Be very clear in your mind as to the difference between the two.
It is illegal for a Doctor to deliberately give you a painless death, it is not illegal for him to stand by whilst you endure a particularly horrific death.
As a result of the ‘Bland’ case, many people will die a cruel and unusual death, many thousands of people.
That is the true legacy of Hillsborough, and we arrived at that position because we, as a country, were not prepared to have an honest debate on the subject of Euthanasia. Today, of all days, it seems we are not even prepared to mention Anthony Bland.
(Written by Anna on a new laptop, sitting in the middle of a rowdy meeting of the Essex Pig Farmers convention, for incomprehensible reasons best known to her – so please excuse formatting, spelling, and grammarian faux pas……..I will be back in France soon and everything will be better…..) (especially the wine – this place must serve the worst Chardonnay in existence)
Anna is the landlady of the Raccoon Arms. She lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France and still takes a keen interest in British politics.
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Correct me if I am wrong here, but didn’t the coroner say that all 96 victims were dead by 3 : 15.
The dignity with which Anthony Bland’s mother continues is painful to see.
Watching Browneye’s messenger on the football pitch and during an interview a short while later – spoke volumes about how we must learn to control the police who continue to try and control crowds of people in public places.
The next few years will see many more people taking to the streets. They will not be in the same afternoon-out happy moods that the football fans were initially in at Sheffield.
The police have learned nothing in the past twenty years ………….. So where do we go from here?
It is imperative that inquests are carried out for these grieving families. It is important and pressing for the current Government to learn from past mistakes before they continue to make more.
Coco – I agree entirerely. There has still been no justice for the people who were at this event and the families involved. The questions have never been answered.
Burnham, like Brown is an opportunist of the nastiest kind. (Brown could make it to Aberdeen for the remembrance service there – he really is a coward . Burnham turned up unexpectedly at Anfield and ruined the agenda) . Thankfully the people of Liverpool know that. Funnily, whilst the MSM are highlighting this matter they are talking over Burnham’s words. The media too had a responsibility that day and as we know they mainly failed..
It’s funny also that on this day Paul Stephenson is announcing a review of police tactics. The police are obscene, as obscene as the governments that back them
In the UK today, there is no justice, only sham politics by plastic people. I want my country back.
and Anna, Essex pig farm fine wine oxymoron :0)
Blink ………… I agree with everything you have said here.
Paul Stephenson looked like he did not want to be in the public eye today.
He looked very shifty to me. Very shifty. I wonder what side his bread is buttered on? I also wonder who is buttering it.
Be very careful what you wish for. At present, an act of omission to prevent suffering or comission to prevent suffering is legal. Interference with this principle could lead to much more human distress than you can imagine.
Mr Bland was in a persistant vegetative state and thus unlikely to experience “suffering” in the sense you describe. Had he suffered, it would have been entirely appropriate for the doctor involved to prescribe morphine to ease his suffering (did he/she – I don’t know, do you?).
There is a need to look into the issue of euthanasia but this case is not a good example.