Assisted Dying
25 Oct 2021
Over the last few weeks there has been a renewed discussion about the possibilities of relaxing the law on assisted dying in this country. The House of Lords debated Baroness Meacher’s bill to allow terminally ill adults assistance to end their life. This bill is unlikely to become law but the debate will certainly continue, and it is likely more attempts will be made to change the current position.
This is not a debate that Christians can ignore. Human beings are made in the image of God, and everyone has dignity because of that. It does not matter how old or young, how sick or how healthy We do not have the power to give life, nor has God given us the authority in these cases to take life.
Of course, no one can listen to many of the stories and arguments in favour of change without a strong sense of sadness and pain. We should pray and hope - and in this day and age expect - that no one comes to the end of their life without dignity and in great pain (whether physical or mental). As those who believe that everyone is created in the image of God, we should be supporting hospice and end of life care, as well as caring for families when they walk alongside those they love in the hardest of times.
We can also recognise that due to the God given blessing of advanced medicine and science, some of the issues surrounding medical ethics are not always straightforward. However, as a simple rule of thumb, intention is important. There is a chasm of difference morally between giving strong medicine to a patient towards the end of their life with the intention of relieving pain, and administering something with the intention of taking life. If anyone would like to think through these issues in more detail, Dr John Wyatt has written a number of helpful books such as “Matters of life and death”(published by IVP).
There is one argument which comes up with regularity in this discussion, and it is important to challenge. As people have discussed this in the media often they have said something like “I’d like to be able to choose to die if I become terminally ill because I don’t want to become a burden on my friends and family”. Perhaps we understand that feeling? After all, none of us love the idea of those we care about having to care for us, especially in ways which inconvenience them.
It is a real concern. We can’t sentimentalise looking after the sick and elderly - as many of us know, it is hard work, it can be frustrating, it is often worrying and tiring, and it does restrict us - however much we love the person.
However, as God speaks to us in his word, he gently challenges the assumption that lies behind that argument. The truth is we have not been created by him to live isolated self contained lives. Putting it bluntly, you are meant to be a burden to me, and I am meant to be a burden to you.
The earliest years of our lives were spent “being a burden” to our parents as they fed us, clothed us and took care of us because we couldn’t do that for ourselves. Their lives were extremely restricted as they did that!
Although we may now enjoy the independence of adulthood, we must never forget our responsibilities to one another - especially in our human families and in the church family (remember how many “one another” commands there are in Scripture).
I am meant to bear your burdens. We may find it easier to remember that (we like feeling needed and helpful). But we should remember in our humility that we do not have all the resources to live our life in our own life - others are meant to bear our burdens. And the Lord has provided an opportunity for that to be clearly seen in how we help one another as our physical strength fails, and we come towards the end of our life.
As Giles Fraser (a vicar who I find hugely frustrating - when he’s right he’s brilliant, when he’s wrong he’s dangerous!) put it so well in a newspaper column nearly 10 years ago -
“For it is when we are this vulnerable that we have little choice but to allow ourselves to be loved and looked after……We are not solitary self-defining intellectual identities who form temporary alliances with each other for short term mutual advantage. My existence is fundamentally bound up with yours. Of course, I will clean you up. Of course, I will hold your hand in the long hours of the night. Shut up about being a burden. I love you. This is what it means to love you. Surely there is something extraordinary beautiful about all of this.” (The Guardian, Fri 3rd May 2013)