An Edinburgh church hall is to stage a “practical euthanasia workshop” hosted by the Australian physician who first helped a terminally ill patient to die legally by lethal injection.
Philip Nitschke, director of Exit International, will use his visit to publicise “newly developed, reliable, DIY end-of-life strategies that do not require travel to Switzerland”.
His event in Edinburgh has already attracted the condemnation of faith groups. The Rev Ian Galloway, convenor of the Church of Scotland’s church and society council, accused Exit of “demeaning our common humanity” by reducing the conversation about life and death to a workshop.
This is so wrong in so many way and at so many levels.
One simple question for the churchmen involved in any manner with this workshop.
“How does committing suicide or condoning suicide affect one’s Salvation, one’s relationship with God?
We had the same thing happen at our church hall… because when the person rang to organise to hire the hall they didn’t say what it was for, and put it under the name of Exit International and our church secretary thought it was a travel agency! (We hire out our hall alot for talks as it is in the centre of the city)
We only realised what had happened when they started publicising the meeting — as being at the Presbyterian church (no mention of hall, no mention that they were just hiring). We got the impression that they were targetting churches and allied organisations because of the implicit respectability given by meeting there.
When we cancelled the extremely liberal Presbyterian church down the road (which regularly invites Bishop Spong to come and give public lectures) came to their rescue when we cancelled them.
Here is the newspaper story:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/wellington/2661072/Church-cancels-Nitschke-talk