How odd it is that the same people who tell me that this is not a Christian country are the same people who tell me that this will be an Islamic nation within ten years and they are happy with it and then in the same breath continue to say that they want a 'non-religious' nation as they don't have a belief!
How odd it is that, when things fall apart and life has sunk to its lowest point, come a knocking on the church door to find acceptance, forgiveness and support. The Church is full of hypocrites and run for the benefit of a God who condemns and prevents people from living the way they want and yet, when the fruit of living for ourselves falls from the tree it's not the world - it's not our families - who offers support for the previously endorsed actions!
How odd it is that when people come up to me with a list of the so many reasons God cannot exist I can find people whose lives and the fruits of their engagement with God tell me something very different.
A few years back when the Labour Party were in power Prime Minister Tony Blair's 'king of spin', Alastair Campbell, made the statement, 'We don't do God'. But in fact Blair (and many other MPs) did indeed do God and God features large in Westminster. He might not be mentioned but He is there and the Judeo-Christian heritage of our nation is there for all to see.
A few years back one of the then MPs told me that their greatest fear was that one day the nation would eschew its Christian heritage and would become an epicurean, self-serving, culture. A society that would endorse postpartum abortion, euthanasia and 'assisted suicide' making our green and pleasant land into what they described as Gehenna!
Interestingly, a few days back, some people put their names on a piece of paper stating how they wanted a non-Christian society. Unsurprisingly, many of those who signed want to live in the very same world my MP friend didn't!
I exist to be a signpost to a place of safety - a place of acceptance and support and care and so much more.
Yes, there are attitudes and lifestyles that I consider wrong (but they don't remove the relationship or the fact that I'm there for you).
Yes, there are mindsets and beliefs that I don't think are compatible with that which the Bible calls us to make our own and assign to God (but I won't throw you out of the church).
Yes, there are standards I expect you to keep, and promote, and things I expect you to do (after all, I expect the same - and more - from me) but I know that you'll not always manage to make it happen too!
Church - a place where brains are engaged - dialogue engaged - facts are not ignored
Pity the world can't make the same claims innit?
Happy St George's Day
Showing posts with label assisted suicide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label assisted suicide. Show all posts
Wednesday, 23 April 2014
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Assisted Suicide - CofE get it right
Today's Statement on the report of the Commission for Assisted Dying from the Church of England from the Bishop of Carlisle is an excellent offering and shows the integrity that I expect (hope or long for) from within our denomination.
The 'Commission on Assisted Dying' is a self-appointed group that excluded from its membership anyone with a known objection to assisted suicide. In contrast, the majority of commissioners, appointed personally by Lord Falconer, were already in favour of changing the law to legitimise assisted suicide. Lord Falconer has, himself, been a leading proponent for legitimising assisted suicide, for some years.
The commission undertook a quest to find effective safeguards that could be put in place to avoid abuse of any new law legitimising assisted suicide. Unsurprisingly, given the commission's composition, it has claimed to have found such safeguards.
Unlike the commissioners, we are unconvinced that the commission has been successful in its quest. It has singularly failed to demonstrate that vulnerable people are not placed at greater risk under its proposals than is currently the case under present legislation. In spite of the findings of research that it commissioned, it has failed adequately to take into account the fact that in all jurisdictions where assisted suicide or euthanasia is permitted, there are breaches of safeguards as well as notable failures in monitoring and reporting.
The present law strikes an excellent balance between safeguarding hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people and treating with fairness and compassion those few people who, acting out of selfless motives, have assisted a loved one to die.
Put simply, the most effective safeguard against abuse is to leave the law as it is. What Lord Falconer has done is to argue that it is morally acceptable to put many vulnerable people at increased risk so that the aspirations of a small number of individuals, to control the time, place and means of their deaths, might be met. Such a calculus of risk is unnecessary and wholly unacceptable.
I include also the CofE's 'Opposing suicide':
"The Church of England is opposed to any change in the law, or medical practice, to make assisted suicide permissible or acceptable.
Suffering, the Church maintains, must be met with compassion, commitment to high-quality services and effective medication; meeting it by assisted suicide is merely removing it in the crudest way possible.
In its March 2009 paper Assisted Dying/Suicide and Voluntary Euthanasia, the Church acknowledged the complexity of the issues while explaining its position, noting that the compassion that motivates those who seek change equally motivates the Church's opposition to change.
In January 2012, the Church reitterated its views by responding to a report from the Commission on Assisted Dying with a statement from the Bishop of Carlisle.
Principles behind the Church's position
• Personal autonomy and the protection of life are both important principles that are often complementary but sometimes compete.
• Personal autonomy must be principled and not without regard to others.
• Protection of life should take priority when there is a conflict between the two.
• When protection of life is impossible that does not undermine these principles.
• Every human being is uniquely and equally valuable, hence human rights are built on the foundation of the 'right to life', as is much of the criminal code.
• An obligation on society, doctors and nurses, to take life or to assist in the taking of life would create a new and unwelcome role for society.
Assisted suicide in practice
There would be problems ensuring that any law permitting assisted suicide would be sufficiently safe-guarded against abuse.
Elastic interpretations of the law: any law, however tightly formulated, would have to be 'interpreted'; doctors would vary in their approach and consistency would be impossible to achieve with 'wider' interpretations of the law becoming acceptable.
Hidden pressures on patients and staff: even with safeguards, it would be impossible to ensure that no vulnerable, terminally ill patient would feel under moral, economic or social pressure to accept assisted suicide.
A redefinition of healthcare: trust in the health service is crucial to the health and well-being of individuals and of the population; to introduce assisted suicide into the NHS (the only way the 'right' would be universally accessible) would be to change fundamentally the nature of that trust.
The doctor and nurse/patient relationship would change: the nature of this relationship would change fundamentally and irrevocably if assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia were to become part of the 'treatment' that health professionals were to be able to offer their patients.
The effects on palliative care: assisted suicide would require large resources, with no guarantee it would be safely and fairly administered, putting further pressure on the already under-resourced psychological, social, family and spiritual support services needed to address all of the needs of terminally-ill people in a full palliative care-package.
Hallelujah!
The 'Commission on Assisted Dying' is a self-appointed group that excluded from its membership anyone with a known objection to assisted suicide. In contrast, the majority of commissioners, appointed personally by Lord Falconer, were already in favour of changing the law to legitimise assisted suicide. Lord Falconer has, himself, been a leading proponent for legitimising assisted suicide, for some years.
The commission undertook a quest to find effective safeguards that could be put in place to avoid abuse of any new law legitimising assisted suicide. Unsurprisingly, given the commission's composition, it has claimed to have found such safeguards.
Unlike the commissioners, we are unconvinced that the commission has been successful in its quest. It has singularly failed to demonstrate that vulnerable people are not placed at greater risk under its proposals than is currently the case under present legislation. In spite of the findings of research that it commissioned, it has failed adequately to take into account the fact that in all jurisdictions where assisted suicide or euthanasia is permitted, there are breaches of safeguards as well as notable failures in monitoring and reporting.
The present law strikes an excellent balance between safeguarding hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people and treating with fairness and compassion those few people who, acting out of selfless motives, have assisted a loved one to die.
Put simply, the most effective safeguard against abuse is to leave the law as it is. What Lord Falconer has done is to argue that it is morally acceptable to put many vulnerable people at increased risk so that the aspirations of a small number of individuals, to control the time, place and means of their deaths, might be met. Such a calculus of risk is unnecessary and wholly unacceptable.
I include also the CofE's 'Opposing suicide':
"The Church of England is opposed to any change in the law, or medical practice, to make assisted suicide permissible or acceptable.
Suffering, the Church maintains, must be met with compassion, commitment to high-quality services and effective medication; meeting it by assisted suicide is merely removing it in the crudest way possible.
In its March 2009 paper Assisted Dying/Suicide and Voluntary Euthanasia, the Church acknowledged the complexity of the issues while explaining its position, noting that the compassion that motivates those who seek change equally motivates the Church's opposition to change.
In January 2012, the Church reitterated its views by responding to a report from the Commission on Assisted Dying with a statement from the Bishop of Carlisle.
Principles behind the Church's position
• Personal autonomy and the protection of life are both important principles that are often complementary but sometimes compete.
• Personal autonomy must be principled and not without regard to others.
• Protection of life should take priority when there is a conflict between the two.
• When protection of life is impossible that does not undermine these principles.
• Every human being is uniquely and equally valuable, hence human rights are built on the foundation of the 'right to life', as is much of the criminal code.
• An obligation on society, doctors and nurses, to take life or to assist in the taking of life would create a new and unwelcome role for society.
Assisted suicide in practice
There would be problems ensuring that any law permitting assisted suicide would be sufficiently safe-guarded against abuse.
Elastic interpretations of the law: any law, however tightly formulated, would have to be 'interpreted'; doctors would vary in their approach and consistency would be impossible to achieve with 'wider' interpretations of the law becoming acceptable.
Hidden pressures on patients and staff: even with safeguards, it would be impossible to ensure that no vulnerable, terminally ill patient would feel under moral, economic or social pressure to accept assisted suicide.
A redefinition of healthcare: trust in the health service is crucial to the health and well-being of individuals and of the population; to introduce assisted suicide into the NHS (the only way the 'right' would be universally accessible) would be to change fundamentally the nature of that trust.
The doctor and nurse/patient relationship would change: the nature of this relationship would change fundamentally and irrevocably if assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia were to become part of the 'treatment' that health professionals were to be able to offer their patients.
The effects on palliative care: assisted suicide would require large resources, with no guarantee it would be safely and fairly administered, putting further pressure on the already under-resourced psychological, social, family and spiritual support services needed to address all of the needs of terminally-ill people in a full palliative care-package.
Hallelujah!
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Suicide - mixed messages
Had a very interesting debate regarding suicide in that the person was bemoaning the loss of a relatively young person and the selfishness of them taking their own life and yet was, in the same breath, basically applauding the BBC documentary and the 'brave' people who had travelled to Switzerland to end it all! Now is this confused morals or what?
I have done funeral services for a number of people who have taken their own life and the circumstances surrounding their exit have been many and varied. Some were terminally ill, some had broken relationship, others still were making a point that they 'would do it' (how I wish people would stop saying that those who threaten to do it never do!) and a couple were the result of an obviously unbalanced mind.
Some told me that the dead person was immensely brave whilst other told me they were immensely stupid. Some wanted a quiet, embarrassed, funeral service whilst others wanted flags draping the coffin and a heroes funeral with all the trimmings. But here at the place where the rubber hits the road, regardless of the route that brought them to that place, it is my job to comfort those lost and help them to make sense of their situation and move on with their lives. It is my job to help those who grieve and the get them to have some perspective and be sensitive to the situation and the ways others might interpret them (for people are often quite harsh, aren't we?).
So what do you do with someone who has lost a friend and blames them for leaving them in such an unthinking and selfish manner? How do you explain that regardless of whether one travels to Switzerland (who I will now have to regard as financial whore and executioner of Europe I suppose*) or kills themself at home on their own (does the absence of TV camera crews make the act more heinous in terms of selfishness?) there are issues that have to be addressed and truths to be acknowledged and dealt with?
Many of those I see who have killed themselves have acted out of desperation, although it seems that because of the energy and passion that men have when this point comes, what might have been a warning shot end up as winning a coconut! Part of my training long back told me that often the line between almost doing it and doing it was thin and that many seeking to exercise a cry for help do it too well! Of course this is not the case with those who travel to do it and because they have made the journey some seem to think the act is endorsed by being 'rational'. I fail to see how killing oneself is a bloody rational act, especially when the reason is that the person who has chosen to die was 'weary' (weary is not a terminal disease but being selfish and wanting to play God is!).
Let's look at it from my perspective for a moment. Those who take their lives at home do so because they have reached a place where they cannot see life continuing. They reach this for a number of reason and that the person is so desperate and in such a state that they can do the act (which must be much like standing at the edge of a rock face and jumping off for the first time when you learn to abseil) speaks volumes of the state they were in. When asked was it brave or cowardly, I have to answer (and I always do) that it was 'desperate'. They'd reached a place where they couldn't go any further and that's the reality!
Could they (those left) have prevented it)? The question is always there. Got there earlier, hadn't gone out, hadn't got back later, hadn't left them alone, had rung them to see how they were, read the sings that they now see with hindsight. The answer is always 'No' because they can't and didn't and even had they done whatever it is that demonises the situation, there's always another day and another crisis. Is this true for those who selecte a 'rational' end to their life? No, I'm sorry I don't think so for they do it clinically and in a way that has no passion, no turmoil, no nothing but the desire to be in control.
So for those who wish to laud and applaud one group and agonise and complain at the selfishness of others who are 'stay at home' suicides can I point out that being 'assisted' brings nothing except some questions for those helpful types who 'assist' (isn't it called 'murder' and isn't there a moral component to carrying out a murder, regardless of the paucity of the local societal values of the place where it happens?).
And like fertility. Even is people have the ability to create or end life the right to either is a moot point, often decided by the finances of the local NHS trust for the former and the ability to pay to visit Switzerland (or one of the other three places) for the latter!
Pax
* During the Second World War it was the Swiss who had Nazis in one room and Allied nations in others funding and providing the means for the continuation (and expansion) of the fighting. The only question raised was that of interest and the potential for making money from the transactions. In the same way Swiss vaults housed (and still do I imaging) works of art, gold and many other artefacts of a Nazi regime) It is for this reasons that I have regarded Switzerland as the 'Whore of Europe'. Now they (proudly) add the label 'executioner' to their menu!
I have done funeral services for a number of people who have taken their own life and the circumstances surrounding their exit have been many and varied. Some were terminally ill, some had broken relationship, others still were making a point that they 'would do it' (how I wish people would stop saying that those who threaten to do it never do!) and a couple were the result of an obviously unbalanced mind.
Some told me that the dead person was immensely brave whilst other told me they were immensely stupid. Some wanted a quiet, embarrassed, funeral service whilst others wanted flags draping the coffin and a heroes funeral with all the trimmings. But here at the place where the rubber hits the road, regardless of the route that brought them to that place, it is my job to comfort those lost and help them to make sense of their situation and move on with their lives. It is my job to help those who grieve and the get them to have some perspective and be sensitive to the situation and the ways others might interpret them (for people are often quite harsh, aren't we?).
So what do you do with someone who has lost a friend and blames them for leaving them in such an unthinking and selfish manner? How do you explain that regardless of whether one travels to Switzerland (who I will now have to regard as financial whore and executioner of Europe I suppose*) or kills themself at home on their own (does the absence of TV camera crews make the act more heinous in terms of selfishness?) there are issues that have to be addressed and truths to be acknowledged and dealt with?
Many of those I see who have killed themselves have acted out of desperation, although it seems that because of the energy and passion that men have when this point comes, what might have been a warning shot end up as winning a coconut! Part of my training long back told me that often the line between almost doing it and doing it was thin and that many seeking to exercise a cry for help do it too well! Of course this is not the case with those who travel to do it and because they have made the journey some seem to think the act is endorsed by being 'rational'. I fail to see how killing oneself is a bloody rational act, especially when the reason is that the person who has chosen to die was 'weary' (weary is not a terminal disease but being selfish and wanting to play God is!).
Let's look at it from my perspective for a moment. Those who take their lives at home do so because they have reached a place where they cannot see life continuing. They reach this for a number of reason and that the person is so desperate and in such a state that they can do the act (which must be much like standing at the edge of a rock face and jumping off for the first time when you learn to abseil) speaks volumes of the state they were in. When asked was it brave or cowardly, I have to answer (and I always do) that it was 'desperate'. They'd reached a place where they couldn't go any further and that's the reality!
Could they (those left) have prevented it)? The question is always there. Got there earlier, hadn't gone out, hadn't got back later, hadn't left them alone, had rung them to see how they were, read the sings that they now see with hindsight. The answer is always 'No' because they can't and didn't and even had they done whatever it is that demonises the situation, there's always another day and another crisis. Is this true for those who selecte a 'rational' end to their life? No, I'm sorry I don't think so for they do it clinically and in a way that has no passion, no turmoil, no nothing but the desire to be in control.
So for those who wish to laud and applaud one group and agonise and complain at the selfishness of others who are 'stay at home' suicides can I point out that being 'assisted' brings nothing except some questions for those helpful types who 'assist' (isn't it called 'murder' and isn't there a moral component to carrying out a murder, regardless of the paucity of the local societal values of the place where it happens?).
And like fertility. Even is people have the ability to create or end life the right to either is a moot point, often decided by the finances of the local NHS trust for the former and the ability to pay to visit Switzerland (or one of the other three places) for the latter!
Pax
* During the Second World War it was the Swiss who had Nazis in one room and Allied nations in others funding and providing the means for the continuation (and expansion) of the fighting. The only question raised was that of interest and the potential for making money from the transactions. In the same way Swiss vaults housed (and still do I imaging) works of art, gold and many other artefacts of a Nazi regime) It is for this reasons that I have regarded Switzerland as the 'Whore of Europe'. Now they (proudly) add the label 'executioner' to their menu!
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
I did it (and ended it) my way!
I think the opening volley in the assisted suicide debate summed it all up for me in one go. Quicker than Murray's tennis match yesterday (does that make him English or merely British I wonder) was 'game. set and match'. "I want to chose how and when I die," is the defining statement.
Not only do people want to live their lives for themselves, making their choices and living them out for themselves (which makes sense for I guess it is the pinnacle of being selfish) but they also want to decide when they've had enough and depart this life when and how they want also. The cherry on a the cake that is a life dedicated to self I suppose. Only to be expected for if there was no place for God in their life why on earth should they leave the issue of it ending to Him either?
I also have to confess a wry smile at Sir Terry Pratcett's comment that he was ashamed that people had to, "Drag themselves to Switzerland at some considerable cost," to die. After all, let's be honest about it, they weren't coming back and they couldn't take it with them so surely the cost was the least of the issues before us! I was also a little bemused and greatly saddened by a phone-in comment where the caller said that the programme was 'great television' and how they hoped that they'd make another. Well one of the cast is no longer with us and the concept of watching someone end their days, whether it be at their own behest, at the hands of terrorists or at a public execution is, in my book, no spectator sport and so does not constitute 'great television' at all.
Then again the discussion and documentaries being no longer what they were (have you seen the circus that is 'Question Time' these days) and given that we need to see rather than discuss and create the images in our heads (another success for the educational system - my kids watched videos of books because it was 'cheaper and quicker' - God help us!!!0.
So if you wish to live, and die, as you choose then that's obviously you're prerogative. If there's no place for God in your doings and your done (still has a hand in your coming if you can duck the abortionists in this 'life is cheap world of ours') the sadly I see no place for you in his 'Come Again' bit either. You makes your choices and you live (or in this case) die with the consequences.
Seems that as the effects of the Judeo-Christian legacy of this country are diminished, so too are the esteem in which life is held and the dignity that some seek removed.
A sad bit of television and a sad indictment on today's attitudes to life and living and a reflection of the idyll that Flaubert (wrongly) paints:
"Just a little sleep and no more!" Yeah, right at so many levels :(
Pax
Not only do people want to live their lives for themselves, making their choices and living them out for themselves (which makes sense for I guess it is the pinnacle of being selfish) but they also want to decide when they've had enough and depart this life when and how they want also. The cherry on a the cake that is a life dedicated to self I suppose. Only to be expected for if there was no place for God in their life why on earth should they leave the issue of it ending to Him either?
I also have to confess a wry smile at Sir Terry Pratcett's comment that he was ashamed that people had to, "Drag themselves to Switzerland at some considerable cost," to die. After all, let's be honest about it, they weren't coming back and they couldn't take it with them so surely the cost was the least of the issues before us! I was also a little bemused and greatly saddened by a phone-in comment where the caller said that the programme was 'great television' and how they hoped that they'd make another. Well one of the cast is no longer with us and the concept of watching someone end their days, whether it be at their own behest, at the hands of terrorists or at a public execution is, in my book, no spectator sport and so does not constitute 'great television' at all.
Then again the discussion and documentaries being no longer what they were (have you seen the circus that is 'Question Time' these days) and given that we need to see rather than discuss and create the images in our heads (another success for the educational system - my kids watched videos of books because it was 'cheaper and quicker' - God help us!!!0.
So if you wish to live, and die, as you choose then that's obviously you're prerogative. If there's no place for God in your doings and your done (still has a hand in your coming if you can duck the abortionists in this 'life is cheap world of ours') the sadly I see no place for you in his 'Come Again' bit either. You makes your choices and you live (or in this case) die with the consequences.
Seems that as the effects of the Judeo-Christian legacy of this country are diminished, so too are the esteem in which life is held and the dignity that some seek removed.
A sad bit of television and a sad indictment on today's attitudes to life and living and a reflection of the idyll that Flaubert (wrongly) paints:
"Just a little sleep and no more!" Yeah, right at so many levels :(
Pax
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