Voluntary Assisted Dying - Clergy Intervention

[Fireball]

I don’t want anyone that wishes to hang on and spend their kids inheritance or life savings…I don’t have a problem with Medicare having to carry the burden.  We should be able to control our death as much as we desire.

However, if grandma is in a coma and only alive due to life support, she’s already gone for all practical purposes.  If the kids ant to spend their inheritance to keep her breathing, also fine by me.  There is a point where someone that’s no longer mentally here and barely physically here where a decision to unplug her is merciful and right…assuming there’s no one to speak for her.  Everything in the end stages are variable and next to impossible to legislate in any general sense. A simple three doctor board is usually enough if no family exists or doesn’t care.

Btw, when my dad was dying, my stepmother couldn’t bring herself to decide to end the suffering.  She let me decide and I did.  The last thing my father wanted was to be comatose burden.  He was already a DNR and my stepmother violated it twice already.  I honored his wishes.

Exactly the situation with my wife's mother. She had a stroke while at the board and care facility (reasonably mobile, at age 92 before that), was hospitalized for it and given 3 day to live. Almost 2 years later, she finally succumbed. I'm going to make sure that if I am in that condition, that feeding is terminated. Fortunately, Medicare paid for some of it, but we were out 3k+ a month on top of that. Just let my carcass go!

[Thumpalumpacus]

I think the more pertinent question here isn't what is right or wrong in this matter, but who gets decide what's right or wrong.  Of course everyone has a right to their own opinion in this modern day when heresy laws are a thing of the past, but whose opinion should determine what happens?  Who is best equipped to make this moral decision?  Approaching the issue from this standpoint, the answer is someone like the good Archbishop.

Really, who else can we trust to find the right answer?

Obviously the issue of individual people, especially those suffering from agonizing chronic conditions, wishing to end their lives rather than continue to suffer needlessly is a matter to be decided by government legislation.  This cannot be a matter for private agency exercised on an individual basis, because people clearly cannot be objective about their own deaths.  Nor can we simply expand the circle of decision making power to next of kin and medical providers.  They are too close to the subject in question, too likely to be emotionally swayed by the patients' suffering and knowledge of the patient's prognosis.  No, clearly all of these delicate, individual decisions must be addressed by a one-size-fits-all policy imposed from above by people so distant from the problem, and so ignorant of the details, that they can exercise complete objectivity.

But even politicians cannot be trusted to be completely objective.  Many of them have had similar fates befall their loved ones, after all, and others will listen to stories from their constituents.  This can inform their views on the issue and corrupt their objectivity.  It is even possible that, left to their own devices, a majority of Parliament will find their reasoning processes corrupted by compassion, empathy, and a belief in the individual agency and self-determination of human beings.

No, it is best to leave such one-size-fits-all policy decisions to the priesthood, who are ideally situated to arrive at the objectively correct decision.  The Christian church has a track record measured in multiple-digit centuries in setting aside compassion and empathy and opposing individual agency.  Who better to not be able to empathize with the dying than those who anticipate life eternal?  Who better to remind us of the sanctity of life than those who worship as flawlessly righteous a god who drowned nearly the entire human population in a fit of rage?  Who better to not have their convictions swayed by compassion for suffering than a clergy that instead places full faith in a religious tradition that burnt people at the stake?  Who is less likely to consider individual agency than a church that committed genocide across the world in the course of forcing countless peoples to abandon the faith of their own choosing and instead pulling them into dogma's loving embrace like so many unwilling altar boys?

Best of all, these clergy are the least likely to listen to be pulled astray by empiricism.  By focusing instead on doctrine, dogma, scripture, ecclesiastic law, and the voice of a god or angels or whatever it is relaying instructions to them, the objectively right decision can be arrived at without the nefarious pull of such moral perils as facts to lead them astray.  This is brilliantly displayed by the Archbishop's warning of a slippery slope which is patently divorced from the wicked and worldly influence of reality.  Where a less-holy individual than he might have their reason corrupted by looking at how events have actually played out in jurisdictions with an individual right to die, this man dogmatically remains true to his convictions.  Such a man is surely the best sort to decide matters of life and death for everyone else!

... unless he remembers that God supposedly engineered his own son's voluntary death.  That might be a problem.  Hmm.

... nah.  I have complete faith in the clergy's ability to ignore the example of Jesus whenever it gets in the way of political meddling, and we must heed his warning that this is a slippery path down a perilous slope which can only end in a bottomless pool of sarcasm.

(Disclaimer:  In full and reluctant fairness, I will acknowledge that maybe I should distinguish between the historical track records of Catholicism and Anglicanism.  Or maybe I shouldn't.  I'm not sure.  When Anglicans, Catholics, and the rest of Christendom can all agree on whether or not Anglicans count as Catholic I will almost-immediately defer to that consensus, delayed only by the task of eating my hat.)

I don't know if you under did, or overdid the sarcasm but I can't make head nor tail of this essay.

Then for god's sake don't read this: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm; your sarcasm detector is clearly on the fritz.

[Vorpal]

The archbishop makes a good point.  Some elect to be feisty, to grasp for low odds, and or to persist in a pain state others may  find intolerable.  Heirs may have medical power of attorney.  There needs to be a mechanism to allow desired persistence that involves what others may see as waste. A recent reddit thread involved how do I get my parents to stop spending my inheritance.

This is more cryptic bullshit. Even without sarcasm.

No. The archbishop is wrong. Wrong by virtue of the fact that he's an archbishop.

The conclusion that such laws be denied across the board is wrong.  The idea that we have to look at the potential for unfairness in both directions is right.

[Minimalist]

[mordant]

Just let my carcass go!

Lol for some reason that made me see a decaying corpse of Moses holding his magic staff: "Let my carcass goooooo!"

[SYZ]

The archbishop of Canterbury is under growing pressure
to resign over failures to pursue a sadistic abuser of children
when allegations were brought to his attention.

Members of the Church of England’s ruling body, the General
Synod, have launched a petition calling on Justin Welby to
quit, “given his role in allowing abuse to continue”.

Welby said last week that he had considered resigning over his
“shameful” decision not to act remorselessly to deal with reports
of abuse by John Smyth who died in 2018, when he was informed
of them in 2013.  Ultimately, though, Welby refused to resign.

Smyth, a powerful and charismatic barrister, sadistically abused
private schoolboys who attended evangelical Christian holiday
camps in the late 1970s and early 1980s. When the abuse was
discovered, Smyth was allowed to move to South Africa with the
full knowledge of church officials, where he continued to act with
impunity.  

Archbishop Welby, volunteered at the holiday camps in the 1970s
but has denied any knowledge of concerns about Smyth. However,
the report says this was “unlikely”.

  —Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!

[SYZ]

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has resigned
following criticism of his handling of a report into a prolific
child abuser associated with the Church of England.

Welby said he had "no idea or suspicion" of the allegations
before 2013, but the report concluded that it was unlikely
he would have had no knowledge of the concerns regarding
John Smyth in the 1980s.

"I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church
of England understands the need for change and our profound
commitment to creating a safer church.  As I step down I do
so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse."

  —What a load of sanctimonious bullshit!  So this filthy old sexual
     deviant has been aware of this clergy sexual abuse for eleven
     years but has said nothing about it?

     Will he now be charged with concealing a serious indictable offence?

[Inkubus]

Religious lobbyists are secretly coordinating and funding bodies that claim to be led by disabled people and health workers.

Amy McKay, an associate professor of political science at Exeter University, said the “grassroots” campaigns appeared to be a clear example of astroturfing – the practice of disguising an orchestrated campaign as a spontaneous outpouring of public opinion. “They’re giving this false impression that they are someone they’re not,” she said. She said using doctors to front a campaign motivated by religious interests was a “common tactic” that gave it added legitimacy.”

...Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK, which is campaigning in favour of legalising assisted dying, said MPs due to vote on the issue needed to know “the honest motivations” of the groups trying to influence them. “It’s worrying that the concealed agendas of some others may mislead MPs and undermine the deliberative democratic process,” he said. Link

I'll bet these are the same slimy bastards who ask 'How can you be a moral person without god?'

[SYZ]

Religious lobbyists are secretly coordinating and funding bodies that claim to be led by disabled people and health workers.

Amy McKay, an associate professor of political science at Exeter University, said the “grassroots” campaigns appeared to be a clear example of astroturfing – the practice of disguising an orchestrated campaign as a spontaneous outpouring of public opinion. “They’re giving this false impression that they are someone they’re not,” she said. She said using doctors to front a campaign motivated by religious interests was a “common tactic” that gave it added legitimacy.”

...Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK, which is campaigning in favour of legalising assisted dying, said MPs due to vote on the issue needed to know “the honest motivations” of the groups trying to influence them. “It’s worrying that the concealed agendas of some others may mislead MPs and undermine the deliberative democratic process,” he said. Link

I'll bet these are the same slimy bastards who ask 'How can you be a moral person without god?'

The web site 'Our Duty of Care' is administered by
Dr David Randall, who's actively involved in the
work of the 'Christian Medical Fellowship', and
who recently helped write "Facing Serious Illness",
a booklet providing guidance for Christians facing
decisions towards the end of life.  (And fuck everyone
else presumably?)

Also running this Christian shit-show is Dr Gillian Wright,
who's a member of 'The Christian Institute', which is a
nondenominational Christian charity committed to
upholding the truths of the Bible, and is committed to
upholding the sanctity of life from conception.

It's of note that nowhere on their site does 'Our Duty of Care' report
on—or even mention in passing—that voluntary assisted dying (VAD)
is lawful in all Australian states.   I wonder why?