Bullies - The Ugliest of Them All

There has been much publicity over the past week about a girl called Josie Cunningham who got breast implants through the NHS.  The story appears to be that she went to her GP, upset with how she looked and the GP has arranged for her to have implants.

This is not a one off occurrence.  Whilst I would prefer the NHS to offer counselling and support as opposed to surgical intervention, this type of thing has happened through the NHS as long as there has been cosmetic surgery.  It could be ears pinned back, a nose job, breast implants.

If the GP assesses that this issue is severely impacting your life, causing you depression, they are at liberty to arrange these procedures under the NHS.  It is nothing new.  This procedure has been offered to her, you cannot demand anything from the NHS. 

The only difference is in this case is that either she has sold her story to the papers, in a bid to attain the Page 3 career that she wants, or someone else has sold the story.

When people put a photograph of themselves in a newspaper or on the internet, or even if someone posts a picture of you, the “norm” seems to be for people to disassociate the person from their photograph. They become just an image, something to be ridiculed if you so wish without retribution. Any comment is "allowed" because they have "put themselves out there".

To date this girl has over a dozen Facebook hate pages set up against her, her photographs have been doctored in horrible ways and the comments written about her all over the internet have been vile.  No one deserves this kind of abuse.  There are other ways to comment on and disagree with a situation rather than spew venomous comments about her appearance. 

If you disagree with the NHS offering cosmetic surgery, take it up with the NHS.  Petitions for her “paying the money back” which I have seen are beyond ridiculous.  If you are going to set up a petition, set one up asking for a reform on cosmetic procedures if that is what you believe.  Use your head, not mob mentality.

Just image if you found one your mother/son/daughter/sister’s image online or your own, only then to find a long line of people criticising the way they looked.  Bullying someone online is exactly the same as shouting abuse at someone in the street.  It is just as bad, if not worse because you are hiding behind your internet connection like a coward.

Bullies are the true ugly ones.