Christians protest against new ‘right to die’ Euthanasia
Times – Ruth Gledhill
As Frances Gibb reports today, Debbie Purdy, has won an historic victory. Charlie Falconer comments in The Times: ‘It should not have taken three years of litigation in various courts for the law lords to accept the simple proposition that a person, in determining how to die, has a right to know what is lawful and what is not; and whether they can be accompanied by their loved one on the way to death.’ Rosemary Bennett’s Times splash a week ago on the results of a Times poll showed that this move has huge public support. The Christian Legal Centre and others on the conservative wing are strongly opposed to this, but I am reminded of the 1998 Lambeth Conference. That meeting was not all about sexuality. The difficulties of moral choices around life and death took up a good amount of time as well. In this speech by Rowan Williams, then Bishop of Monmouth, it is made clear how complex these kinds of moral choices are.
Professor William Wagner, former US federal judge who now teaches ethics and constitutional law at the Cooley Law School, is among the strongest critics. He said on behalf of the above-mentioned legal centre: ‘Five law lords just declared the taking of human life to be a human right. This raw exercise of judicial power creates a culture of death with grave implications for the United Kingdom.
‘Ultimately, state authorized suicide proceeds from the fundamentally erroneous premise that human life in certain conditions has no positive value. That premise has incalculably grave implications for all of us. When we abandon moral points of reference today, it becomes easy tomorrow to choose death in other ways, for other people, in other situations. For example, the Nazis first legalized voluntary euthanasia, then involuntarily killed hundreds of thousands of the mentally ill – all prior to the unspeakable tragedy of the holocaust. The Dutch started with assisted suicide, “progressed” to voluntary euthanasia, and now a physician kills patients there without their consent.
‘When the positive value of life becomes an immorally relative individual choice, very bad things always follow. Minutes after the law lords published their decision, the CEO of Dignity in Dying called on parliament to expand the scope of assisted killing in this nation. The grave implications for the United Kingdom accompanying such a choice are clear.’
Dr Williams, in his 1998 plenary to the Lambeth Conference bishops, was more nuanced. He called for a ‘grammar of obedience’ in ethics. He said: ‘How do Christians make moral decisions? In the same way as other people. That is to say, they don’t automatically have more information about moral truth in the abstract than anyone else. What is different is the relations in which they are involved, relations that shape a particular kind of reaction to their environment and each other. If you want to say that they know more than other people, this can only be true in the sense that they are involved with more than others, with a larger reality, not that they have been given an extra set of instructions.’
Euthanasia was at the time being debated in Autralia. Archbishop Peter Hollingworth chaired the group at the Lambeth Conference that looked at that issue. The group’s work had some extremely pertinent points in it, relevant to this debate. There was this report of the group’s work: ‘Euthanasia emerges as issue. The recent overturning of euthanasia legislation in Australia has surfaced as bishops discussed that issue. Archbishop Peter Hollingworth, whose church province includes the Northern Territory where euthanasia laws were introduced and then overturned, told reporters that a key part of his sub-group’s work was drawing a distinction between allowing a terminally ill patient to die and actively causing that death.
He said there were ‘huge cultural differences’ in views of death and dying between those held by indigenous peoples, in the developing world, and in the developed world. The archbishop said he hoped that the final statement approved by the Lambeth conference would include mention of palliative care.’
In the end the final statement was strongly opposed to euthanasia. But Archbishop Hollingworth said the use of increased dosages of analgesics which may indirectly hasten the death of a terminally ill patient would not fall under the definition of euthanasia. The use of ‘gradual increases of dosages’ (of analgesics) was now a ‘widespread and well-accepted practice,’ he said.
But interestingly, although little noticed at the time, this debate in 1998 did also illustrate the growing divide between Global South and the West. South-East Asia’s Dr Moses Tay was among the delegates concerned that the debate on euthanasia showed a move towards assisted dying, as this report at Ethics for Schools makes clear:
‘Their resolution states that euthanasia ‘is neither compatible with the Christian faith nor should be permitted in civil legislation’. However, they went on to distinguish euthanasia from withholding, withdrawing, declining or terminating excessive medical treatment. Some delegates were dismayed that the conference appeared to be endorsing the withdrawal of food or fluids. The Archbishop of South East Asia, the Most Rev Moses Tay, a doctor, said ‘giving food and drink is Asian culture and to withhold it would violate our consciences.’ The director of CARE (Christian Action Research and Education) raised similar concerns.’
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