A leading woman priest in the Church of England has spoken out in favour changing the law to allow assisted dying.
Canon Rosie Harper, vicar of Great Missenden and chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham, said she supports Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill which receives its second reading in the House of Lords on July 18.
Her position directly contradicts that of the Church of England, which has argued consistently for no change in the law.
Read it all from Christian Today.
There is a BOATLOAD of wisdom in 1 Timothy 2:12.
The inability of some senior clergy to understand, let alone explain or defend, the church’s longstanding teaching is pretty sad.
The image of some lovely middle class family lovingly gathered round their dying elder raising a glass of wine in celebration ought to be replaced by some tiny Down Syndrome kid being euthanized at 2 days because their “quality of life” will be too poor or some deeply depressed older person looking for a way not to be a “burden” to their kids. Don’t think it’s possible? It’s already underway in the Low Countries.
Driver8 is entirely correct about depressed older people being put down in the Netherlands. A few years ago First Things carried a full account, with names, of a 90-year-old woman being put to sleep with her full consent and that of her family – all of whom were named, so it was an accurate account. The family were entirely in agreement. The woman was not ill, simply tired and depressed.
With regard to the report in question, I wonder how other Churches can engage in dialogue with the Church of England, because as soon as anyone in the C of E says this is what we believe, this is what we teach, someone else jumps and and says no it’s not. I can remember the days when good faithful Anglicans like the late Donald Allchin used to speak of Anglican comprehensiveness as a good thing. But I wonder what he would say now. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.