Euthanasia

Fr. Tim Jones, St. Lawrence's, York

Sunday, March 8th 2009

I have watched several people die. I don’t know how many - it is not that I have lost count, but just that I was never counting in the first place. I have been present at only one fairly sudden death; I have also been present in the immediate aftermath of a suicide, and at the bedside of a young mother who had taken a deliberate overdose when she died a few hours later in hospital. For the most part I have been there when fairly elderly people were spending their last few days or hours of life confined to a bed, surrounded by their loved ones, in hospital, in a hospice, or at home. Most of the people I knew at least a little already; some I knew - or loved - very well. I was with my grandmother when she died a few hours after she suffered a stroke at Easter 2002.

I should say that for the most part those who were dying were treated extraordinarily well by the medical staff in attendance. In fact, I can recall only one person whose death seemed really dreadful, and their care inadequate, and I found myself praying with all my heart and soul and mind that God would take them immediately. He did. The one other time I thought that someone’s life was unbearable and prayed for God to take them, she made a good recovery. A few weeks later I visited her at home where she was making a salad for the family barbecue. She died gently in her sleep a year or two later, and I’m glad she had that time. Thank you, God.

It is not easy watching people suffer. In our gospel reading today, Jesus warns his disciples that he would be arrested and suffer greatly before his shameful death as a criminal, pinned to a cross, dying in agony as a public spectacle. The disciples all knew what crucifixion looked like. Those who read the gospel for the first time would have been as familiar with the sight of thieves and swindlers dead and dying as were the medieval citizens of York, or travellers to Hull seeing bodies swinging on Garrow Hill in this parish.

The disciples were absolutely horrified that Jesus was telling them that this suffering - this dreadful, appalling, shameful suffering - was part of his plan. No wonder that Peter protested vigourously: “No, Lord, this must never happen to you.” And I can’t help but feel sorry for Peter, as Jesus rebukes him in the strongest possible terms: “Get thee behind me, Satan.” The possibility of avoiding that suffering must have been tempting to Jesus indeed, but he was no stranger to temptation, and knew exactly what was its ultimate source.

A few days ago a wealthy British couple made the headlines because they travelled together to Switzerland to have doctors help them commit suicide together. They had both been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and they decided to take their lives, rather than endure the suffering and the possible loss of dignity that the suffering would entail. Their daughter described her parents’ joint suicide as something beautiful. It came just a few weeks after the government and judiciary, at their point of intersection, decided that those who helped others to travel abroad to kill themselves would not be prosecuted.

I don’t think that the suicide of that couple was beautiful. It was, though, something we might expect to see a lot more of, because the floodgates of officially sanctioned suicide are tragically opened a little further by their deaths. Suicide is a mistake, a terrible mistake, because it is the denial of our trust in God, and a trivialization of human life because it deems suffering and dying to be the trump cards. Suffering and dying are seen to be so unacceptable that they override the normal human expectation that life is to be afforded all the protection that society can provide it with. Human life is now to be lived, and protected, only if it is at least potentially enjoyable. Life, instead of being seen as the supreme gift, becomes something of a leisure activity, the arena in which we can worship the false gods of choice and entertainment.

But what right, it might be asked, does anyone have to say to another person that they may not end their own lives? If someone does not believe in God, or frankly does not care about God in the context of their suffering, why should anyone else have a say in whether they may or may not end the life which is after all their possession and no-one else’s? Let us leave aside, for the moment, the observation that our lives are not a freehold possession, but a gift from God, which we hold in trust, in covenant. Let us sadly accept that it is a belief ever less shared.

We should not let each other commit suicide because, in absolute contrast to the ideas attributed to Mrs. Thatcher, we ARE a society, we ARE more than just an agglomeration of individuals and families. Our lives - our attitudes, our behaviour, our songs, our struggles and our loves - have a deep and profound impact on each other. You affect me, and I affect you. I have rights as an individual, but those rights are constituted by the responsibilities you have towards me, just as your rights are given form and reality by the responsibilities I have towards you. When we lose the high regard we have for the sanctity of each others’ life - and we are doing - then all our other rights become precarious indeed.

I have read of the tradition in far off places, or nearby places in ancient times, that when a man died, his loved ones were expected to throw themselves alive onto his funeral pyre. It was a terrible and gruesome thing to contemplate, though in its own context it was no doubt considered a beautiful thing. It can be a short slide from tolerating something to expecting something. Care for people as they die, giving them the space, the love, and the medication they need can be an expensive, exhausting business for everyone concerned, and the budgets they must manage. It is, you know, much cheaper to have people put down when their lives are no longer enjoyable, or when they become expensive, or when they become unproductive, or frankly when we just don’t like them any more.

It can indeed be a short slide from tolerating something to expecting something.

I make this prediction. Watch for this carefully, because one day it will come. One day a politician will bemoan the fact that poor British people and their families have to travel all the way Switzerland to kill themselves, and campaign for legislation allowing them to stay here and be killed. When that happens, pray for yourselves and for each other, because your lives just got that bit cheaper. The hospice movement was just undermined that bit further. Our expectations of each other just diminished that bit further.

Get thee behind us, Satan.