Thursday, May 13, 2004

A Nation Of Curtain Twitchers?

Blog’s can be boring.

They are tools of the ego. Why should the Internet community be interested in what I’m doing daily? I don’t for a minute expect anyone to care about my life and what I get up to. In today’s tense political environment tales of me going to get drunk and getting up to traffic-cone-stealing hi-jinx’s are insignificant.

It is because of this that I don’t want to use this blog as I dairy of what I do, but more of what I think.

So what is on my mind today? Well it’s the old tale of abortion. The battle between the rights & wrongs of abortion have always been rife in America but the last few weeks have a seen a rise of interest in the UK. It started when Channel 4 aired a programme featuring graphic footage of an abortion. I’m not going to get into the rights & wrongs of abortion. People much more intelligent and wiser than I have discussed this issue for decades and still not come to a conclusion. Instead it’s the media’s handling of the issue that bothers me.

Today the media is full of the story of Michelle Smith, a 14 yr-old girl who kept an abortion secret from her mother after having unprotected sex. There is also the ongoing tale of Church of England curate, Joanna Jepson getting involved after she discovered that a Dr. Michael Cohn performed an abortion on a baby with a Cleft Palate 28 weeks into the pregnancy.

I think the recent tales of abortion are a side-effect of society’s current obsession with other people – particularly celebrities. We are too interested in what other people are doing when really we should care about ourselves, and our closest friends. Perhaps it is Heat Magazine’s fault but I don’t care what trousers Beckham is wearing this year. I can live without knowing Jay-Lo’s secret pot noodle addiction or that Will Young sniffs the saddles in the local gym. Likewise it is none of Joanna Jepson’s business as to why Michael Cohn carried out the abortion – it should just be between him and his patient. Also the media should not be further traumatising a young girl by running her abortion story in the press. In fact this will probably damage her more than the mental anguish of the abortion its self.

No society is too nosey for it’s own good. The crime is not the abortion its self but the fact that we know about it. We don’t like Big Brother watching us, so why should we become Big Brother?



Not all blogs are boring - this one's great!



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