And please, whatever you do, don’t try to argue against assisted dying on religious grounds. Dignity in Dying has been scathing of religious opposition, treating it as irrational and irrelevant in a predominantly secular society. “Look!” they say, “We have Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, fighting our corner, as well as Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham, and his chaplain, Canon Rosie Harper, and..”
And who? Well, that’s pretty much it. It doesn’t seem to matter that last year more than 20 senior faith leaders, including Justin Welby, all signed a letter opposing the previous version of the Bill. Trying to find a Christian who will publicly support their objectives is like finding a turkey who looks forward to Christmas. “No, no, you’re all wrong and our tiny band of Christian friends are absolutely right,” Dignity in Dying insists. “Can’t you see how wise Lord Carey is when he describes the proposed law as ”˜a profoundly Christian and moral thing’?” He wrote a piece for the Mail on Sunday last month, in which he said: “I often find myself asking: ”˜What would Jesus do?’ I think I know what he wouldn’t do. He wouldn’t say: ”˜There, there. Pain is good for you. Take it like a man or a woman.’”
Let’s take a deep breath and think about this for a moment. If assisted dying is Christian and moral, we must believe that Jesus would encourage it. Can you really imagine a woman coming to him with a malignant cancerous growth, and Jesus looking at her with compassion but offering some poisonous berries? Or, if none was available, handing her a knife, telling her that there is nothing left in her life worth living for and that it would be better if she slit her wrists?
All the proponents should set proper examples and practice what they preach so as to offset all this nay-saying they so fear. Demonstration is worth a thousand words, isn’t it? Perhaps the religious leaders cited can go first.
Dr Stroud, don’t you think that the late Pope John Paul did just that? He lived with the ravages of Parkinson’s and the last glimpse we had of him was him trying to speak and being unable to do so. Courageous, I thought, and yes, practising what he preached.
I can hardly believe the trivial shallowness of Carey as quoted here. It is sad when a man undermines his successor, and, as we in England, bad form. Gentlemen do not make things difficult for those who step into their shoes.
His triviality is evident in his imagining of what Jesus would do. Perhaps Jesus is already there: the nursing aide emptying the bedpan, the masseur bringing relief from pain in joints stiff from lying in bed, the medic who judiciously balances the morphine so as to combine relief with lucidity … and also prescribes anti-emetics to counter the vomiting brought by morphine. Or, in a hospice, the cheerful lady with the trolley (in U. S. parlance: cart) at sundown who offers you a stiff cocktail.
Terry Tee, yes, the late Pope John Paul did just that. I was suggesting that those in the headlines, particularly, if uncharitably, Lord Carey, should do their programme the same honour. If they lead by doing, no doubt the world population will fall and climate change be reversed as well. It is always someone else’s dying these folk prattle on about. The proponents of assisted dying should serve as exemplars and practice what they preach.
Should persons be told that physical death is not the end of existence?
Are we doing a favour to a person who has not accepted the salvation offered by our Blessed Lord Jesus, by ushering them into a Christless eternity?
It has been said that Hell is a place without God and therefore without
light or love. Does this possibility of physician assisted death, make the sharing of the gospel all the more urgent?
Terry Tee, I heard just this morning of a friend facing a cancer diagnosis. This is a very independent woman who is always doing things for other people. It’s very hard to learn to accept help, and the opportunity to help someone can be a great gift to the giver.
Yes, Katherine, you make me add that of course I wonder how I will be when my time comes. I am not one of life’s heroes. But surely we go forward in faith. The atheist campaigners (Dawkins et al.) always condescendingly assume that we are ignorant of worldly realities. But the truth is that few Christians, if any, whom I know, have escaped suffering. Many of them, though, have been strengthened by the knowledge of the unseen Companion at their side. May it be so.