Friday, 29 March, 2024
HomeBio-Ethics‘Right to die’ debate draws a brace of Archbishops

‘Right to die’ debate draws a brace of Archbishops

In 1998 Nelson Mandela requested the South African Law Commission to present a proposal on assisted dying, writes Marianne Thamm on [s]Maverick[/s]. The subsequent report, which included a Draft Bill, the End of Life Decisions Act 1999, has since been ‘quietly lost’. Now Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu ‘provided ground-breaking ethical and moral leadership’, announcing he backed the right of the terminally ill to choose to end their lives.

Writing in the [s]The Observer[/s], in response to a the UK’s Assisted Dying Bill, Tutu says laws that prevent people being helped to end their lives are an affront to those affected and their families. He also condemns as ‘disgraceful’ the treatment of his old friend Nelson Mandela, who was kept alive through numerous painful hospitalisations. Tutu, who calls for a ‘mind shift’ in the right to die debate, writes: ‘I revere the sanctity of life – but not at any cost.’ Tutu also calls for SA to follow Britain's lead in examining a change in the law.

The campaign to legalise the right to die 'took a significant step forward’ when the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, reversed his previous position to announce his support for the proposal, reports [s]The Guardian[/s]. However, the current head of the Church of England, Archbishop Justin Welby, described the Bill as ‘mistaken and dangerous’, notes a report in [s]The Independent[/s]. He warns that ‘it would be very naive to think that many of the elderly people who are abused and neglected each year, as well as many severely disabled individuals, would not be put under pressure to end their lives if assisted suicide were permitted by law’.

Meanwhile, back home, [b]DignitySA’s[/b] Sean Davison has said in a [s]Maverick[/s] interview that Tutu's support was the biggest single impetus to the local ‘assisted dying’ campaign since the launch of the lobby group in 2011.

[link url=http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-07-14-the-right-to-die-archbishop-tutu-provides-guidance-on-the-last-medical-legal-and-ethical-frontier/#.U8Phgbb0nlQ]Full Maverick report[/link]
[link url=http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/12/desmond-tutu-in-favour-of-assisted-dying?CMP=twt_gu]Tutu’s full The Observer article[/link]
[link url=http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/12/archbishop-canterbury-carey-support-assisted-dying-proposal]Full The Guardian article[/link]
[link url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/welby-and-carey-speak-publicly-of-opposing-positions-in-right-to-die-debate-9601322.html]Full The Independent article[/link]
[link url=http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-07-15-groundup-death-with-dignity-not-only-a-debate-for-developed-countries/#.U8YMoLb0nlQ]Full Maverick interview[/link]

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