Well done, Terry Pratchett. I didn’t see the documentary, but I think that it was right of him to make it in order to highlight
the fact that some people want the right to end their own lives when living becomes too much of a burden for them.
I heard this morning on the radio, bishops from the English church decrying the programme, and of course I am aware that the CofE is not the only religion that feels that way. I fully respect their views. But not everyone has the faith of these bishops that the suffering involved in slowly dying of a wasting disease, or the pain involved in some other unpalatable end, is worth it because it is God’s will.
Some of us just don’t want to suffer. Poor spirited? No I don’t think so. If you don’t have religious belief, it’s not poor spirited to want to end a life that is no longer worth living.
At hustings during the election, I heard four different politicians from four different parties come down against assisted suicide, as proposed by Margo MacDonald. I heard talk of pain management and dignified endings, but pain management doesn’t ever really wor
k. People are left with pain, restricted in what they can do and the side effects of the analgesics can be disturbing.
I’ve heard the arguments about the distress it causes relatives. But I know I’d rather someone I loved died quickly than suffered a long undignified decline. I’ve heard that pressure from greedy relatives might be put on people to end their lives, but as long as the suicide were to be supported by independent doctors, as a genuine bringing forward of the inevitable, I can’t see that being a huge problem. We need to remember the additional suffering caused to the dying person by the knowledge of the strain that it is putting on their friends and family.
It wouldn’t be perfect, but then what is?
Death is inevitable. It comes, like it or not. People must be allowed the choice.
I’ve put a poll on the side bar =>. What do you think?
What in the name of...well... I suppose, in the name of God, do the staff in our Foreign and Commonwealth Office get to do with themselves all day?
Well for one thing changing the font on the FCO logo. Yes, for a mere £80 000 the FCO got consultants redesign the logo from the top to the bottom example.
We all have to make sacrifices because of the greed and stupidity of the financial sector and the government, all except the FCO, which needs a new logo. Desperately.
It’s the FCO’s new “brand” you see. I’m sure you’ll have guessed it, but if not, the new “brand” represents: Empowering; Insightful; Principled; Persuasive; Strategic; Intelligent. (You knew it all along.)
Right.
So, if they are intelligent, why on earth were they wasting their time... no, our time, with a brain storming (or I was once told by a council official “thought showering... as brain storming might be offensive to people who suffer from epilepsy”. Can you imagine the look I gave her?) on the subject of suitable activities f
or Pope Benedict’s state visit to the UK.
Some half wit wrote a report suggesting all manner of idiotic things like launching an eponymous condom brand, opening an abortion clinic, singing a charity song with the Queen and doing forward rolls with school children.
In fairness there was one very interesting proposal, that he spend the night in a council flat...why not? If he has come to see how his people live in this country, the palaces of the Cardinal Archbishops in Glasgow or London are not likely to give him any indications at all. And it included the suggestion that he should sack some “dodgy bishops”, with which I have a deal of sympathy.
But these two proposals aside, surely the rest of the document is some sort of joke. And in these straitened times, if we have staff with time to produce joke documents, then it is high time we lost them.
For the rest of us there is little time to joke, and frequently little to laugh about.
The British government has of course been fulsome in its apologies to the Vatican State.
The Bishop of Nottingham called the report appalling and Cardinal Renato Martino, former head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace said: “The British government has invited the Pope as its guest and he should be treated with respect. To make a mockery of his beliefs and the beliefs of millions of Catholics, not just in Britain but across the world, is very offensive indeed.” 
Actually I agree with him. Right now I have no time at all for the Pope. It appears that he has covered up numerous cases of child abuse and has taken a light hand with others who have done the same thing. Saying he is sorry and weeping and praying may be considered to be justice enough in the Vatican State, but it sure as hell (literally) isn’t in Scotland. In my opinion the invitation to visit should be withdrawn until such time as we have a Pope unscarred by any association with this filthy crime.
However, I am also concerned that we are employing, presumably at considerable expense, Oxbridge educated (educated?) staff to write this drivel. And as punishment the writer has been transferred to other duties! Maybe he’ll be redesigning the logo, or weeping with the Pope.
Incidentally, this is the first ever state visit of a Pope to Scotland and England. Pope John-Paul II’s visit in 1982 was financed by the Vatican; this one is costing us millions.
Pics: Old Logo; New logo; Pope Benedict in a red hat
I have just been reading about the report commissioned by the Irish Government into the scandal of the Roman Catholic Church in Dublin. The report blames four Archbishops and a host of lower clergy for covering up clerical abuse, both physical and sexual, of children over the years between 1975 and 2004.
Perhaps worst of all, it blames the Garda Siochana, the Irish police, for covering the crimes that were reported to them, and leaving the Church to deal with the offenders in their own way. Amazingly, the Church’s remedy was simply to move the offending priest elsewhere to start all over again. It seems that the Garda felt that priests were above the law because they were The Church, and so they carried on their evil protected by the law. Crimes reported to them by children and parents were simply referred to the Church authorities.... and from there ignored.
The report concluded that the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church and the preservation of its assets was more important than justice for its victims.
The Irish Justice Minister, Dermot Ahern, has promised that there will be no hiding place for the perpetrators of the crimes. Justice, he said, has been delayed, but will not be denied. Hopefully the Church will be giving every co-operation to trace the priests who were guilty and who are still alive. But I wait to see if this will actually happen. They had, it seems, tried to take out insurance against the claims which might arise from this abuse. It might have been better for them just to stop the abuse, rather than insure against its financial cost.
It seems to me that it unhealthy for the Church or its clergy in any country to be above the law, as it was, and they were, in Ireland. The untold damage that has been done to children may yet manifest itself in further disturbed behaviour.
When will the authorities at the very top of the Church, I mean the ones in the Vatican, act to stamp out this vile behaviour?
the fact that some people want the right to end their own lives when living becomes too much of a burden for them.
k. People are left with pain, restricted in what they can do and the side effects of the analgesics can be disturbing.
