Thank you, Mme, I won't bother responding to that post directly since the poster I think will be gone by the time I do. If you remember, I carefully didn't mention any names when I used the quote, but mentioned to you in PM, that I bet it would appear on a certain thread and so it did!
I appreciate the correction about Hawking. Surprise. I actually don't mind being told when I get something wrong, though I usually prefer not being told I am mental. I did think he had CP, not Lou Gehrig's, and also there are several articles around about the internet right now that seem to confuse the issue of when people will be left to die.
I think that the point remains the same. No child comes out of the womb with a prediction of his future on his forehead. LUckily, the UK seems aware of this and I could find not one instance a child with CP, which is a condition that develops in the womb, has been put to death and actually, because of improved survival rates and postbirth care, these children are now the focus for improving the quality of life.
But that poster, whom, yes, I have on ignore because too many of his posts are just nasty, and life is too short, was right about Hawking's age, but he was not correct about Hawking having established himself in any impressive or serious way in the scientific community at that point. He had just received his BA and was heading to Cambridge to study further when he was struck by ALS. His tutors had recognized that his mind worked very differently than normal, but I doubt they had to appear in front of some death squad to beg for his survival. '
. Almost as soon as he arrived at Cambridge, he started developing symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (known colloquially in the USA as Lou Gehrig's disease), a type of motor neuron disease which would cost him almost all neuromuscular control. During his first two years at Cambridge, he did not distinguish himself, /i>
It wasn't until after the disease stabilized that he began to work on his PhD. Luckily, the NHS had kept him alive long enough to become the scientist he did.
Whether his care has been far better since then may be true, but our system certainly functions in that way also. Of course, in ours, it depends on how rich you are, or how good your coverage is- which is a reflection on how rich you are. |
