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Daily Mail

4,160 bytes added, 19:12, September 24, 2009
Updating page since Daily Mail included an article supporting assisted suicide.
[[Image:Dail Mail front page.jpg|right|thumb|250px|July 15 2005 edition]]
The '''''Daily Mail''''' is the second biggest selling British [[tabloid]] newspaper, and possibly the least is very [[liberal]] in its editorial stances, supporting euthanasia<ref>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1215710/A-N-WILSON-I-wake-night-wishing-I-killed-mother-But-Keir-Starmer-wrong.html</ref>, and is noted for its stance on gun control and the NHS. It has a Sunday edition called ''The Mail on Sunday''. Its two million plus circulation is one of the largest of any daily newspaper in English. <ref>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/dailymail/home.html?in_page_id=1766</ref>
==Early History==
[[Neville Chamberlain]]’s [[appeasement]] policy was supported by the ''Daily Mail'' until after the [[Munich Agreement]], but the newspaper changed its stance after the Nazi invasion of [[Hungary]] in 1939. This change of attitude may have been influenced by Chamberlain’s threat to close them down.
 
==Support for euthanasia==
 
The Daily Mail recently published an article in support of euthanasia. The article and author of the piece stated that:
 
*"When I wake up in the watches of the night, I still wish that I had killed my mother. In her late eighties, this spirited, independent, active (almost hyperactive) old lady began to slither downhill."
*"For a few months, I felt almost grateful that she did not know what was happening to her."
*"She was never happy for a single minute in those last years, until the last day when a kind of peace descended&hellip;If only she had died before she reached this state! If only her hitherto dignified life had ended as nature so plainly meant it to end."
*"As I began by saying, I wish I had possessed the courage to smother her with a pillow, rather than leaving her in that living hell for over two years. Had the roles been reversed, I would have begged her to kill me."
*"I do not know whether my poor mother would have wanted an assisted suicide or not. All I know, since watching her agonisingly slow death, is that I would most definitely want to take my own life, or for someone to take it for me, before I reached this stage."
*"I see no virtue whatsoever in these terminal circumstances, in pretending that there is some mystical thing called 'life' which God or Morality have forbidden us to terminate&hellip;The half-life of paralysis, and pain, and misery for all around you is no life at all. In my view it is far better to end it all in circumstances which are, if possible, in your control."
*"So yes, I would welcome the legalisation of assisted suicide in this country and would support any moves to bring it on to the statute books&hellip;The trouble is that Keir Starmer's guidelines are no help at all - in fact, they mean we are in the ludicrous position of the law saying one thing and doing another."
*"Increasing numbers of people in this country believe, like me, there is an overwhelming case for changing the law. The two objections to changing the law do not stand up&hellip;One is that the system is open to abuse. It is claimed that unscrupulous carers or family will force sick or elderly patients to 'opt' for suicide because they do not want to be a burden&hellip;But the sorry reality is that unscrupulous and unpleasant people will always abuse the weak and the elderly, whatever the law. Their malign activities will go on whether the assisted suicide is legalised or not&hellip;The second objection to legalising assisted suicide is that there is often something noble about people suffering an illness for as long as nature or God decree&hellip;There are those who cite the example of Jade Goody - a girl who lived in many ways a terrible and immoral life but who bravely used her terminal cancer to give her children a decent future&hellip;Yet most cancer patients are not represented by Max Clifford and will not make a million from their prolonged deaths&hellip;On the contrary, for many families the continuation of a terminally sick patient's lingering condition in expensive care can be ruinously expensive, especially if the relatives have to give up their jobs to become carers."
*"It is true that unscrupulous children might make parents feel that they are a burden. But the illness and decrepitude of some patients is often placing a burden - an intolerable burden - on families, making it impossible for them to live their lives and calling for reserves of goodness or sheer energy which they simply do not possess."
*"It is not immoral for carers and younger family members to feel entitled to a bit of a life apart from the agonising bedside, and I fail to see why the preservation of life in such circumstances is always to be seen as virtuous."
*"But beyond this, in a free society, it seems intolerable that grown-up sentient beings can not decide when to bring life to an end, without the added horror that those they love best will be criminalised."
==Recent history==
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