Posted on 07/12/2014 12:42:13 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
The cross-party campaign to legalise the right to die took a significant step forward last night when the former archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, announced his support for the proposal as a way of preventing "needless suffering".
The Church of England is strongly opposed to the bill. But in an article for the Daily Mail, Carey said he had changed his mind after witnessing the pain of Tony Nicklinson who suffered from locked-in syndrome. He died two years ago just weeks after losing his high court battle.
"Here was a dignified man making a simple appeal for mercy, begging that the law allow him to die in peace, supported by his family. His distress made me question my motives in previous debates. Had I been putting doctrine before compassion, dogma before human dignity?
Carey added that advances in modern medicine has been a crucial factor in his thinking. "While drugs might be able to hasten the end more quickly and painlessly, sophisticated medical science also offers people the chance to be kept alive far beyond anything that would have been possible only a few years ago. Yet our laws have not caught up with the science."
He wrote: "Then there are all those cases conducted in the shadows, where doctors, friends or relatives privately carry out mercy killings with a high dose of drugs."
Carey added that the Falconer bill would take mercy killings out of the "legal twilight".
Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, the chair of Inter-Faith Leaders for Dignity in Dying, welcomed Carey's intervention. Romain said: "The former archbishop's words are like a breath of fresh air sweeping through rooms cloaked in theological dust that should have been dispersed long ago. He shows that it is possible to be both religious and in favour of assisted dying."
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
You've got to get your beliefs, preferences and directives in writing, AND! AND! AND! you've got to have somebody --- your spouse, your oldest child, your brother or whoever --- who really understands what you want, to be there to advocate for you. As important as a document is, a document won't speak up for you and bang its fist on the Clinical Manager's desk when there's a dang medical ethicist saying your life is meaningless, and a hospital administrator who wants to free up a bed.
My personal recommendation is to go HERE and click on your state and evaluate for yourself what you want when you're too weak to be as communicative or as assertive-as-you-wanna-be.
Get it in writing, and let your nearest and dearest know.
Very good advice Mrs. D. I know who will get my medical proxy, a very good friend who truly embodies the American value of “I might not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
She understands me and would never, in a thousand years, substitute her own judgement for what, in her best understanding, would be mine.
And, she’d be more than willing to pound on a desk if necessary, and sadly it often is.
....And one of the factors of why it will come under attack more and more as time goes on. God Bless the Holy Faith.
Pray not only for the conversion of ALL to Christ, including us, but for the full unity of Christian believers!
THAT is a WONderful prayer!
Will do.
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