Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918 and died on December 5, 2013, and today, July 18, 2014,
Google is celebrating the anniversary of Mandela’s birth with an interactive Doodle. Starting with an illustration of the former leader, visitors to the site can click through a number of his most well-known quotes, coupled with illustrations depicting stages of his ‘Long Walk to Freedom’.
Last week, Desmond Tutu archbishop emeritus of Cape Town and a Nobel peace laureate and a member of the Elders an international group of former political leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela to work for peace, justice and human rights made a plea for ‘assisted dying.’ Tutu said,
laws to stop people being allowed help to end their lives removed their “human right to dignity”.
and describes the end of life treatment of Nelson Mandela,
who was kept alive through a long and painful illness which saw him wheeled in and out of hospital and forced to take part in PR-driven photo shoots, [as] an “affront to Madiba’s dignity”.
Today, on the the anniversary of Mandela’s birth, the British House of Lords is debating the Bill that would legalise assisted dying.
It took the House of Lords long enough to catch up. Some forward-looking Britons were advocating assisted dying for Mandela himself as long ago as 1985.