Dying.
The process of serious, irreversible, and permanent end to all earthly relationships.
Assisted
dying.
Seeing or
sensing this process, and adding pressure/ ingredients for it to occur more
quickly.
Voluntary
assisted dying.
People
asking others (caregivers?) to provide the means and skill to speed the process
of serious, irreversible and permanent end to all earthly relationships.
There are
some assumptions.
Death is
peaceful.
This is an
assumption. A big assumption.
Post
Christian western culture, with its history of an understanding of heaven, eternal
rest, the welcoming arms of Jesus, or angels, paradise, clouds, softness, etc, has
fed a general understanding of peace after death. How often, at a funeral, do we say or think or write R.I.P? (rest in peace). We sometimes add physical details to our hope, in the items we bury with our loved ones, and the picture we paint of our loved ones enjoying their favourite activity, be it fishing, or drinking in a pub, for endless days in a peaceful blue watering hole in the sky.
However, it
remains an assumption.
"Rest in peace" is an expression more of hope than certainty.
There was a
time, I believe, maybe 100 years ago, when sudden death was considered a curse, as opposed to
knowing death was coming gradually, giving the dying person enough time to reconcile
with God and family/friends/enemies, making the possibility of peace after death more likely. Orthodox faith ("Orthodox", as in standard Christian belief, not a denomination) includes teaching on both heaven and hell.
Hell being a place of eternal (forever, never ending, continuous, permanent) torment.
Something, if true, you would certainly wish to avoid, and also, if true,
occurs after death, and certainly does not imply peace. Being "right" with God, was the most important detail of a persons temporary life on earth, so fleeting in comparison with eternity. Physical suffering was not considered as serious as dying with unforgiven sins.
Post-christian
western culture, as well as some modern Christian denominations, have held on to the "positives" and thrown away any negatives,
regarding the possibility of post-death suffering.
As a
result, the seemingly pointless suffering of a protracted terminal illness is
feared more than anything that may or may not occur after death. In fact, death
is welcomed, and hence the assisted dying legislation is given serious
consideration.
And what of
the act of killing, planned killing, mercy killing, euthanasia, assisted dying,
first degree murder?
It would be
offensive to some, to gather those terms under one umbrella. I do so deliberately.
"Thou shalt
not kill", remains a well-recognized, and probably the most well-known commandment of
the 10 given to Moses in the book of Exodus. The preservation and sanctity of life is held in high regard in the Jewish
faith, Christian faith, Islamic faith, Buddhist faith, and others.
Yet in the
face of terminal illness suffering, western culture, in Australia and other
countries, is looking to make the practice of ending life deliberately, "medically" both legal and acceptable. I purposely put "medically" in inverted commas, because medical treatments are designed to be safe, life prolonging, life preserving. As soon as they are being used in lethal quantities, I believe they no longer qualify for the term "medical", but are now simply poisons.
To many, a "quick" end to life when faced with terminal cancer
seems a "no-brainer". (Again I use the inverted commas on "quick", as I know that nothing is ever guaranteed, even the electric chair sometimes malfunctions.)
And, after all,
who really knows what happens after death?
Is there Nirvana?
Re-incarantion? Annihilation? Who has ever returned to tell the important details?
There are
many accounts now of what people have experienced in near-death or arrest
situations, even with the ability to recount details of what the doctors and nurses were
doing in the emergency room or surgical theatre at the time. (Trying to bring them back, rather than trying to speed their demise...)
People talk
of peace, and a light. But I have also been aware of people seeing flames and
demons.
None of
this is fully reliable. It is a matter of faith.
And Western
society, was based and founded on the Christian faith. The singular, most important truth
of this faith being the resurrection from the dead of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, the
one person who (by faith, and by the historically reliable accounts of the New Testament) has actually died and returned, rising from the dead, in such a way as he will
never die again, given that he has defeated death, morally overpowered it and permanently diffused it; death no
longer has power of him.
Jesus promises
his followers a resurrection to eternal life. He also teaches, in the new
testament, more than anyone else, on the reality of hell, and eternal
judgement. His Parable in Luke Chapter 16, though an illustrative story, gives serious detail
into the nature of hell.
As our western
society runs headlong into proud, faithless, secular understanding and practice, with empty church
buildings, and only the vestige of faith as a curious decoration, the process
of bringing to irrelevance practices based on Christian belief is happening more
and more quickly, almost inevitably.
And if
there is an all-powerful creator God, who sits in judgement, it may be that he
is actually allowing us to rush into this faithless/godless pattern of living.
Yet the Christian
faith is in a God who is merciful. A merciful God who will bring his people to repentance,
despite our stubborn refusal. But also a just God who will never simply overlook sin. In the meantime, people of faith must continue on.
Continue in prayer and in hope, continue in serving a wonderful, Tri-une,
merciful God, who loved the world so much that he sent his one and only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.
And we do continue on as consistently as possible, despite changes in law,
even if that means ridicule and other difficult ramifications.
