Reverence for Life

The latest bill to go before Parliament seeks once again to introduce the possibility of assisted dying. Eventually one such bill will surely succeed and the dam will be broken. Change will follow. The current proposal is to allow physician-assisted dying in cases in which a six-month terminal prognosis has already been given. It seems not unreasonable, but the inevitable cry is that this is the thin end of the wedge. Indeed it is. If assisted dying is permissible in the case of someone who has been given less than six months to live, the principle of allowing assisted dying has been conceded. It will then be a short step to say that someone who is not going to die, but is in a long-term degenerative state, will also be allowed to have their life ended. We risk entering a culture in which the disposal of people is seen as being normal and a reverence for life will be lost. The weak and the vulnerable will be at risk. I believe that, if the culture of our society changed in this way and if I faced such a degenerative illness, I might well accept a way out. I might choose death, both to spare my children the pain of seeing me in such a degenerative state and to protect my estate so as to allow it to be passed on to my children. Something has shifted here, for however valued I might be made to feel by my family and friends, I would have to live with the option of exiting life. Is this what we want to impose on those who are old, sick or vulnerable?

Yet I am haunted by the words of Desmond Tutu who says that he has changed his mind in this matter because of what they did to his friend Nelson Mandela. They kept him alive with drugs and machines while world leaders were photographed with him. But, says Tutu, his friend was no longer there. He should have been allowed to die. For me, part of the problem lies in the attitude that life is a disposable commodity and that end of life issues are a matter of personal choice. I disagree. These are matters which should concern society and which should be a matter of corporate debate and decision making. What value to we place on life and what sort of society do we wish to live in? Do we not have a duty to protect the vulnerable who might be under attack to do the decent thing and end it all? Yet there also needs to be a degree of compassion for those who can no longer face life and seek to die. If there is to be a public debate it needs to move away from the area of personal choice to an acceptance of death as a natural thing towards each of us must move. I was horrified by the story of an elderly person who was saved by medical science and then had to endure some years of suffering. Why was she saved? Why was she not allowed to die? Why could not nature have taken its course? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that we cling to life at all costs, until it no longer becomes bearable, and then each of us wants a way out, if we should need it. The prolonging of life to every increasing ages opens the way to an increase in the illnesses of old age and so sharpens the challenges of suffering in that old age. Life is extended and so the challenges of how life should end is sharpened. The Church can no longer just hold a line against assisted dying. There is an issue to debate and real questions to answer as to how we value life, protect the vulnerable and yet also exhibit real compassion to those who suffer. I was once opposed to assisted dying, but now I think there is a real issue that needs to be addressed.