Wednesday, 24 October, 2007
- 24 Oct 07, 05:28 PM
Abortion row
Health Minister Dawn Primarolo told the Commons science and technology committee today that the government does not believe there is sufficient scientific evidence to lower the legal abortion limit of 24 weeks. The Pro-Life Alliance is calling for the upper limit on terminations to be cut, and Lord Steel, architect of the 1967 Abortion Act, has voiced concern that the procedure is being used as a form of contraception. We'll be exploring the issues and asking how attitudes to abortion have changed in the last 40 years.
Wildfires
California, the richest state in the United States, is reeling from a natural disaster. The fires have led to the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people - the largest number since Hurricane Katrina. We'll have the latest and be assessing how the government has responded to the crisis.
Sicko
Michael Moore's latest film compares the health care system of the United States with those of other countries which offer what American politicians call "socialised" medicine - like the NHS. Moore paints Britain as a much better place to get sick in than America. Is he right? I'll be talking to him.
We regret that we are unable to run our "Voting Scandal" film tonight. We have received new information which we need to investigate and we hope to show this film at a later date.
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I enjoyed the article on the split in the RESPECT party earier this month, will you be following it up with the latest developments
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I assume that your interview with Michael Moore was prerecorded but I would like to say that my late partner, who was a US citizen but, when she decided to live in the UK opted into the UK system, received magnificent treatment within the NHS system. During a process which involved a vital organ transplant and a range of experimental therapies, nobody ever mentioned cost until, right at the very end, when there was nothing to be done when it was decided that any further treatment would be meaningless.
After her death, I left the UK, bitterly angry about other aspects of the way UK society works, but I will never forget or cease to be grateful for the care that she received within the NHS.
It is ironic that, when she knew she had lost the battle, she wanted to make a visit to her birthplace in Los Angeles. The insurance cost was prohibitive. An American who could go anywhere on the planet except America!
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The California wildfires seem to have fixated the media because the holiday homes of celebrities are threatened. The extremely low number of fatalities and injuries does not render the annual Santa Ana wind generated fires an especially newsworthy event. Of course Bush and Arnie will want to be seen to have learned the lessons of Katrina, after all next year is an election year, but why is Newsnight bothering with this?
Similarly, SICKO is something that should be parked on Newsnight Review. Moore asks good questions, but again I wonder why the ±«Óătv does not invest more in trying to hold the UK Govenment to account for the unacceptable deaths of patients in NHS hospitals due to MRSA etc. When Dr Shipman killed several patients a few years ago, Newsnight forced accountability and a review of procedures surrounding the delivery of patient care. This year we see that avoidable laziness and incompetence is killing far more people, and there is such a smaller fuss.
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Is it possible for pro- and anti-abortion advocates to stop their arguments and unite to divert their energies towards lobbying for care and support for actual living children. Over the years they have been abused by adults who were protected from punishment or treatment by organisations with more regard for their corporate image than the welfare of the young.
Apart from various kinds of abuse, children have been sent to 'the colonies' away from friends and families for a variety of reasons, not least the tidying up of the illegitimate and orphaned. Add to that a society that has become more concerned about money, status and 'life style' and lost the vital art of parenting. Finding agreement about something would present a better face to children. Is co-operation so outmoded a concept?
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RE: Michael Moore's latest film, SICKO,
I would have thought Michael Moore knows about the rebuff he'll get from his look at the NHS.
I recall about 7-10 years ago, watching a program on Channel 4 in which Michael Moore presented a live broadcast from Time Square, New York. He intended to get citizens of the USA without health insurance to get free treatment on the UK NHS by asking UK callers to phone in and agree to marriage!
I was pleased to hear all the callers phone in to complain directly to Moore about how out of touch he was...the program fell flat on it's face - there were no offers for marriage.
It does seem as though he's expecting the critism this time.
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What happened to the story on the Birmingham City Council Voting Scandal we were promised in the Newsnight email?
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Has the govt provided this 'new information' to stop you highlighting Labour party election fraud?
The govt says 'jump' and the ±«Óătv says...
well, you know the rest.
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Is it possible for pro- and anti-abortion advocates to stop their arguments and unite to divert their energies towards lobbying for care and support for actual living children. Over the years they have been abused by adults who were protected from punishment or treatment by organisations with more regard for their corporate image than the welfare of the young.
Apart from various kinds of abuse, children have been sent to 'the colonies' away from friends and families for a variety of reasons, not least the tidying up of the illegitimate and orphaned. Add to that a society that has become more concerned about money, status and 'life style' and lost the vital art of parenting. Finding agreement about something would present a better face to children. Is co-operation so outmoded a concept?
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As worthy of discussion as tonight's issues have been, where was the bit on the local elections in Birmingham that you sent out an email broadcast about earlier this evening?
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What happened to the story on the Birmingham City Council Voting Scandal we were promised in the Newsnight email?
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As worthy of discussion as tonight's issues have been, where was the bit on the local elections in Birmingham that you sent out an email broadcast about earlier this evening?
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FOETUS FOCUS:
No law prevents a mother from carrying to term any living “form” – even with two heads and “not enough else to go round”, unless Nature’s own law ejects it without ceremony. But nature is fickle and fallible. Equally fickle and fallible Human acceptance of foetuses, known to have seriously constraining conditions, is not unusual. Sometimes this is done out of “respect for life” but why do we assume every foetus desires life? Might it not more reasonably, on occasion, yearn not to live? It had no say at the conception.
It is well known that our body-chemistry is adversely affected by our mental state. How is gestation – specifically the physical wellbeing of the foetus - affected by a mother who does not want to carry, and give birth to, a child? This is a lot more serious than stress-indigestion.
A society that uses war to solve differences; increasingly “successful” in preventing the “escape of life function” from terribly shattered, mutilated and truncated bodies; and one that uses similar expertise to condemn, barely viable, premature births to a life of infirmity is, at best, confused and at worst, evil. If all possible life is so valuable, why not invite a copulating free-for-all among the young (possibly already under way) removing contraception?
In the final analysis: do egg and sperm, respectively, have the right to be brought together to create a brief few decades of consciousness, trapped in an unreconstructed ape, above all other considerations? Or do they have equal (or greater) right to be left in un-quickened bliss? What of all the sperm destined (in natural terms INTENDED) to be sacrificed, and eggs likewise? Do they not have some bearing? Nature, it seems, has no qualms about non-expression of potential, any more than she has over the ejection of “errors”.
Having, apparently, CULTURALLY decided that unconscious, and barely conscious, foetuses deserve absolute respect, how do we justify the many indignities that our culture inflicts on the already-made-conscious, namely: babies (urging mother back to work) toddlers (further denial of mother through pre-school) young kids (more school that crushes the less able) and teenagers (accent on academic learning wholly unsuited to some)?
Then there is child neglect and abuse and wars with their mutilation, rape and terror.
What of the far end of life when the misery of Alzheimer’s and dementia etc, impinges on all concerned, while our culture denies release except through starvation to prison-camp-cadaver; and then only if the necessary criterion of terminal illness is fulfilled? This is imprisonment of an often proud spirit in an all-too-often useless body. As the saying goes: “You wouldn’t wish it on a dog” – and the telling fact is, you don’t – the dog gets merciful release! And on the subject of imprisonment: nominal adults of all ages, often in pre-existing mental anguish, are put into prisons for failing to conform to society’s “norms of madness”. There, they are subjected to a thousand times the hell of foetal termination; able to cognise every uncaring nuance of “criminal justice” and the exquisite pain of enforced unsought associations; through it all in an understanding (albeit sometimes minimal) of just who has inflicted it upon them and, unlike the foetus: just what the future holds (or doesn’t hold.)
Foetal termination is to man’s total inhumanity, as cruelty to individual domestic pets is to factory farming. We are a deeply confused and dishonest species; and I would warn egg, sperm and foetus to stay well away from what is ironically termed “a life”.
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FOETUS FOCUS:
No law prevents a mother from carrying to term any living “form” – even with two heads and “not enough else to go round”, unless Nature’s own law ejects it without ceremony. But nature is fickle and fallible. Equally fickle and fallible Human acceptance of foetuses, known to have seriously constraining conditions, is not unusual. Sometimes this is done out of “respect for life” but why do we assume every foetus desires life? Might it not more reasonably, on occasion, yearn not to live? It had no say at the conception.
It is well known that our body-chemistry is adversely affected by our mental state. How is gestation – specifically the physical wellbeing of the foetus - affected by a mother who does not want to carry, and give birth to, a child? This is a lot more serious than stress-indigestion.
A society that uses war to solve differences; increasingly “successful” in preventing the “escape of life function” from terribly shattered, mutilated and truncated bodies; and one that uses similar expertise to condemn, barely viable, premature births to a life of infirmity is, at best, confused and at worst, evil. If all possible life is so valuable, why not invite a copulating free-for-all among the young (possibly already under way) removing contraception?
In the final analysis: do egg and sperm, respectively, have the right to be brought together to create a brief few decades of consciousness, trapped in an unreconstructed ape, above all other considerations? Or do they have equal (or greater) right to be left in un-quickened bliss? What of all the sperm destined (in natural terms intended) to be sacrificed, and eggs likewise? Do they not have some bearing? Nature, it seems, has no qualms about non-expression of potential, any more than she has over the ejection of “errors”.
Having, apparently, culturally decided that unconscious, and barely conscious, foetuses deserve absolute respect, how do we justify the many indignities that our culture inflicts on the already-made-conscious, namely: babies (urging mother back to work) toddlers (further denial of mother through pre-school) young kids (more school that crushes the less able) and teenagers (accent on academic learning wholly unsuited to some)?
Then there is child neglect and abuse and wars with their mutilation, rape and terror.
What of the far end of life when the misery of Alzheimer’s and dementia etc, impinges on all concerned, while our culture denies release except through starvation to prison-camp-cadaver; and then only if the necessary criterion of terminal illness is fulfilled? This is imprisonment of an often proud spirit in an all-too-often useless body. As the saying goes: “You wouldn’t wish it on a dog” – and the telling fact is, you don’t – the dog gets merciful release! And on the subject of imprisonment: nominal adults of all ages, often in pre-existing mental anguish, are put into prisons for failing to conform to society’s “norms of madness”. There, they are subjected to a thousand times the hell of foetal termination; able to cognise every uncaring nuance of “criminal justice” and the exquisite pain of enforced unsought associations; through it all in an understanding (albeit sometimes minimal) of just who has inflicted it upon them and, unlike the foetus: just what the future holds (or doesn’t hold.)
Foetal termination is to man’s total inhumanity, as cruelty to individual domestic pets is to factory farming. We are a deeply confused and dishonest species; and I would warn egg, sperm and foetus to stay well away from what is ironically termed “a life”.
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Re: Sicko
MRI scanners are a fantastic invention, but having a lot of them does not necessarily mean good medicine.
90% of the time, the diagnosis is made not by clever tests, but by the story the clinician elicits from the patient. Tests can be normal, even when there is something seriously wrong; and doing tests indiscriminantly can throw up abnormalities which would have absolutely no consequence - except for now giving you something to worry about.
I worked briefly in the US, and I saw a man who could barely speak for pneumonia being asked to explain how he would pay for his treatment.
Yes, there are issues with the NHS, but for once, can't we celebrate it?
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Every vote for an MP is a vote for a criminal???
We assume votes were economically skewed...
To bump off the incredibly rude
They said duty was sick...
and injected us quick...
No more characters just cadaverous nude...
BCD...Thankyou for raising the subjects... apparently the fires in California were started to smoke out the Mexican House murderors...
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Why when Michael Moore said Britain imprisoned Irish people without trial didn't Esler ask him which Irish person was currently imprisoned without trial instead of allowing another Moore garbage fact to go unchallenged by the self-loathing ±«Óătv liberal he is.
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Saw Michael Moore, what a good interview, obviously many do not like what he says but he was dead right.We have a brilliant health care system here, OK it needs some changes and improvements but the system is good. 50 million US citizens without care! He had the answers, we do love to moan,nevertheless the proof is we live longer.
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What happened to the trailed 'Voting Scandal'?
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Sir, An excellent interview with Michael More, with all it's imperfections we have an NHS to be proud of. Population, new diseases, and the sheer volume of an ageing poulation have seen a vast transformation from it's birth in 1948 but our forfathers knew that the NHS was a force for good and we should cherish it and as Michael says do not go down the privatisation road. Well done Newsnight.
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I wrote in praise of Michael Moore and you've ignored it - why?
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Bo beat me to it to query why Gavin Esler did not pull up Michael Moore on his comment about imprisoning people without trial.
It struck me as a glaring comment which should have been challenged in the interview.
When I read his book, Stupid White Men, it also had a chapter on Northern Irish politics. This was so wide of the mark, it made me consider how much of the rest of the book was rubbish as well.
The same goes for the Newsnight article and interview.
Whilst his material may be entertaining, one is left wondering what, if any place it has in a considered Newsnight debate when Moore can be so easily written off.
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Following many questions:
We regret that we were unable to run our "Voting Scandal" film last night. We have received new information which we need to investigate and we hope to show this film at a later date.
Ian, Newsnight
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I thought that the Michael Moore interview with interesting. It gave a different perspective to what is happening in America. Why aren't British people with the same opinion as Mr Moore interviewed more often in your programmes?
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Yes Moore was incorrect about locking up the Irish without trial - well, not wronge exactly, but a few years out of date. These days it's Muslims who are locked up without trial.
That's what Esler should have pointed out and what everyone watching was thinking.
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Can the Government still impose "D" notices? Like many others I would like to know what happened to the report on the Birmingham vote scandal?
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I didn’t like Gavin Esltles sneering attitude towards Michael Moor,
The American health care system (if you can call it a system) clearly fails at the most fun mental level,
Making the NHS and the participles behind it look highly attractive ,
We tend to be to self critical and don’t appreciate what we’ve got,
We should be happy for Michael moor to remind us of this.
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Newsnight, can you please get this blog sorted out? It's beyond pitiful how unreliable it is. If you're paying someone to host it for you, you shouldn't be; if you aren't, maybe you should. There must be lots of valid comment that you're missing simply because people get fed up having to re-submit, or submitting only to find their comment disappears or is duplicated. We're ready to interact, it's you that seems ambivalent about it.
That being said, an excellent programme last night. I'd elaborate if I had any confidence that my comment would be posted.
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yeah. we're just this quant little country that always has 'an enemy' but ultimately all our enemies become our friends and everyone comes and lives with us. our aristocracy is french, german and dutch. our economy is run by scots. our intelligentsia is driven by one or two of the twelve tribes. and so on down the list of cultural influences. i shouldn't think afro-carribbeans will ever truly forgive us for slavery, and why should they? but the main point to living in the uk is not to give up fighting for a better life by resorting to violence.
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please help save our community
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