Metaphors. From the BBC,
In an historic vote, MPs have approved a bill which would pave the way for huge social change by giving terminally ill adults in England and Wales the right to end their own lives.
The Terminally Ill Adults Bill, which was backed by 314 votes to 291, will now go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.
The bill was approved with a majority of 23 MPs, representing a drop from the first time it was debated in November, when it passed by a margin of 55.
MPs in this context are Members of Parliament, members of the U.K. House of Commons, to be specific. At no point in the BBC’s article do they explain what the bill passed today actually does.
Reuters proved more helpful in explaining the significance of today’s vote,
The “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life)” law would give mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales with six months or less left to live the right to choose to end their lives with medical help.
From my vantage point an ocean and half and a continent away, England looks to be dying as a nation and a civilization. From the society that produced Magna Carta, Shakespeare, and a world-circling empire, rises a people determined to go out with a whimper, rather than a bang.
Quoting from earlier in that same poem by adopted son T.S. Elliot,
Shape without form, shade without colour.
Paralysed force, gesture without motion..
