The
third week of June was a remarkable one in British public life. The House of
Commons voted both to progress the Assisted Dying Bill and to de-criminalise a
mother taking the life of her unborn child at any point. The old and the young
are not safe in modern Britain.
I
don’t want to cause any pointless offence. You may be completely uninterested
in what I have to say about these matters and if so I invite you to enjoy the
summer sunshine. These are highly sensitive
matters and it is not pleasant to think about them. I said something about
assisted dying on a previous occasion. The abortion numbers in the UK are such
that whether we know it or not, this issue almost certainly touches us, our
family and friends. I don’t want what I say here to seem horribly blamey and
judgemental. And I completely understand if you don’t want to read it at all or
if you strongly disagree with it. Perhaps these things are easy for me to say.
I am not a 15-year-old drug addict who has been raped by her pimp. I confess
these are privileged armchair keyboard warrior opinions that have not been
fully tested in the grit of real life. Nevertheless, if you do want to read on…
Personally
I think that from the point of conception we should behave as if we are
relating to a human life. We should treat all human life as sacred with
absolute dignity. There is no other safe and objective standard. All human life
must count as worthy even if it seems inconsequential or unbearable from some
points of view. Human beings are in the Image of God and we owe them the love
which is proper to our neighbour. The weakest and most vulnerable have a
special call on our care.
Certainly
when an unborn child might be viable outside the womb, I cannot see how its
termination can be justified. The proposed situation of decriminalisation will
be absurd. A mother alone will be able to sanction the ending of her child’s
life with no legal consequences at, say, 11am, before birth, but if she were to
murder her baby at 12pm, after the birth has taken place, she would face a
mandatory life sentence. In what universe is this sensible or coherent or good
for society? I cannot see that it is good for the mother. And certainly it is
not good for babies an hour before they are delivered.
You
might say this situation will probably never occur. We shall see. But in any
case our laws and the operation of our legal system ought to have a measure of
logic about them. And they ought to send a message that we love life and human
beings. We will never allow the convenience or the wishes of the relatively “strong”
to trump the life of the weak, even in theory or in principle.
Taken
together, the changes to the UK position at the beginning and end of life look
like an embracing of a culture of power and death.
I
am praying for repentance and good sense and righteous laws which are
enlightened by centuries of reflection on our Biblical Christian inheritance
which made the West great.
These
proposed moves are a regression to the pre-Christian pagan norm where
infanticide and suicide were common. Jesus taught us to love the little
children and our elders. The Emperors held them to be disposable.
If
our culture does embrace folly and death, Christians have a wonderful
opportunity to love life. To have children and to care for them. To offer
adoption and fostering. To sit with the old and dying and pray for them and
care for them. To take in parents and
grandparents if need be or to run care homes which really care and feel like a
fitting home from which to be called Home.
May
God have mercy on us and our society.