Monthly Archives: June 2011

It’s not yours!

Standard

Ann Neumann ends her article on the USCCB declaration calling for the end to legal aid in dying with these words:

I asked Doerflinger, Is it immoral to end a dying life? Even if it is one’s own?

“If what?” he asked from a cell phone in Seattle.

“One’s own,” I repeated.

“It isn’t one’s own.”

(Richard Doerflinger is “the associate director of the USCCB’s Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities.”)

Now, I know where that idea comes from. St. Paul says, in his First Letter to the Corinthians:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your body. [1 Cor 6.19-20]

So of course Richard Doerflinger thinks this, since he is (or at least purports to be) a Christian. But what weight should that belief have with other people? In what sense could it be said that my life is not my own, and your life is not your own? Doerflinger thinks that it is appropriate to say to someone who does not (or at least may not) share his beliefs that her life is not hers. On the strength of what evidence does he make this claim?

In the USCCB declaration itself the only candidate for evidence that our lives are not our own is the discussion of the idea of inalienable rights. The founders of the American republic named these as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in true Enlightenment terms. Life, the bishops say, is named before liberty and happiness, since liberty and happiness are premised upon having life. “Therefore,” they say, “the right to life is the most basic human right.” Other rights can only be enjoyed if we are alive, but these other rights “lose their foundation if life itself can be destroyed with impunity.”

Now, all this is doubtless true, although there is a sense in which even the dead have rights, the right not to have one’s body desecrated or disposed of without due regard, or the right not to be blamed for things which one did not do in life, as well as the right to have one’s testamentary will respected. But being alive, or having been alive, are certainly the basis for having rights of any kind. And while the bishops’ declaration goes on immediately to say that,

As Christians we go even further: Life is our first gift from an infinitely loving Creator. It is the most fundamental element of our God-given human dignity,

there is absolutely no reason for anyone to follow them in this, unless they accept the bishops’ religious premises, and indeed many good reasons not to.

Continue reading →

About these ads

Myths about Assisted Dying

Standard

I’ve been involved during the last couple of days in going from link to link, reminding me of my early days at university walking through the stacks and feeling overcome by all the learning that was “out there”, and how small a portion of it I could ever comprehend, and hold, as it were, in a single glance. It seemed, as I went from link to link — a kind of arguing by exponents. And it seemed, as I did so, that it would be impossible ever to come to any kind of sane conclusion which could be securely based on the evidence, on good reasons, on some kind of unquestionable data.

Of course, we do it all the time, day in and day out. We have to make decisions, come to conclusions, express our opinions, argue for our point of view, and we know that some of those conclusions, opinions and points of view are more likely to be correct than others. Otherwise, like Buridan’s ass, we would remain stuck, and life would become a dramatic still life of indecision.

Continue reading →

Swiss government drops plan to impose stricter rules for assisted suicide

Standard

June 29, 2011 – 12:02

The Associated Press

BERN, Switzerland – The Swiss government has dropped a plan to impose stricter rules for assisted suicide.

Switzerland has long permitted “passive assisted suicide,” where someone can give another person the means to kill themselves provided the helper doesn’t personally benefit from the death.

// The government said Wednesday that existing laws provide enough safeguards to prevent abuse without giving the impression that the government approves the work of suicide groups such as Dignitas.

Read more …

The Religious Narrowing of the Mind

Standard

Patrick Reilly, founder and CEO of the Cardinal Newman Society, a tattle tale organisation with a watching brief on Catholic higher education in the United States, has written two articles, one in 2005, and one this month (June 2011), on the unfaithfulness of some professors and teachers at Catholic institutions of higher learning to the teachings of the popes, and to standard Catholic doctrine, regarding abortion and assisted dying. It is no surprise that there isn’t 100% agreement on these ethical questions, even amongst Catholics. This month’s contribution to these tattle tale works is entitled “Bishops Betrayed on Assisted Suicide.” The 2005 article, which “Bishops Betrayed on Assisted Suicide” somewhat misleadingly (and self-praisingly) calls “an exclusive report,” is entitled, tellingly, “Teaching Euthanasia.” Ophelia Benson is discussing these over at Butterflies and Wheels, where I first became acquainted with Patrick Reilly and his “petulant authoritarianism” (see Didaktylos’ comment below). Together the articles comprise a condemnation of the tendency of teachers at Catholic institutions of higher learning to think for themselves, and to hold up to the cool light of reason the teachings of the church, and the extension of those teachings in surprising ways by the popes, in particular, by Pope John Paul II, the Polish replacement for the murdered pope John Paul I (Albino Luciani). (I know that’s going out on a limb, but there is, I believe, sufficient reason to be doubtful of the Vatican account of his death. However, nothing that I say stands or falls on this particular “leap of doubt”.)

Luciani, as a former Patriarch of Venice, went so far as to welcome divorced persons, and actually looked into the possibility that the “pill” might be the best way of regulating births. (See “The Scandals and Heresies of John Paul I), and expressed himself as not entirely in favour of Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae. This document, which put the seal of death on the “pill” and other means of regulating birth, and condemned all so-called artificial means of contraception, led to all the madnesses of the church in denying the efficacy of condoms, even to the extent of prescribing that, should a husband be infected with the HIV virus, it is better to have unprotected sex with his wife than to commit the sin of using contraception. There are, said the pope’s spokesman for family affairs, some things that are worth more than life itself (referred to by Uta Ranke-Heinemann in her book Putting Away Childish Things), including the sanctity of marriage, which can only be preserved by preserving its procreative function — thus showing clearly that the Roman Catholic Church is not opposed to someone killing another innocent person, just so long as they do it in an ethical way which preserves the possibility of procreation.

Continue reading →

Alma Lopez’s “Our Lady”

Standard
This is a picture of Alama Lopez’s “Our Lady”.  According to Alma Lopez’s account on almalopez.net the picture is

… a 14″ x 17.5″ digital print. This print was included in an exhibition titled CyberArte: Tradition Meets Technology curated by Tey Marianna Nunn at the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico.The exhibit consisted of four Latina artists (three New Mexicans and me) whose visual work included imagery containing traditional cultural iconography (such as La Virgen) produced using digital technology. The three New Mexican artists are Elena Baca, Marion Martinez and Teresa Archuleta Sagel. The purpose of Cyber Arte was to introduce people familiar with the cultural iconography to new technologies and vice versa.

Cyber Arte opened on February 25, 2001 and closed as originally scheduled that same year on October 28. Soon after the opening, Jose Villegas and Deacon Anthony Trujillo were joined by Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan in organizing protests demanding the removal of the small digital print. The protests were violent. The museum, the curator, and I endured constant verbal abuse and physical threats.

The print that the Archbishop and the protestors found so offensive is only an image of a forty year old woman with her belly and legs exposed standing on a black crescent moon held by a bare breasted female butterfly angel. This small print was on exhibition in a museum, not a church.

The account goes on to speak of a bitter letter writing campaign to the artist, some of them written by small children:

I still cry [she writes] when I remember receiving an anonymous large yellow envelope containing letters written by small children. It makes me sad that adults teach children to hate and write hate mail.

Significant is that Alma Lopez speaks of the image as a folkart depiction of la Virgen from a feminist perspective:

I admit, I was surprised by the violent reaction to Our Lady because I am a community artist born in Mexico and raised in California with the Virgen as a constant in my home and my community. I am know that there is nothing wrong with this image which was inspired by the experiences of many Chicanas and their complex relationship to La Virgen de Guadalupe. I am not the first Chicana to reinterpret the image with a feminist perspective, and I’m positive I won’t be the last.

Nor will the first protest against the picture be the last, as the experience of the Irish protests testify. The print is on exhibition at University College Cork, and catholics are complaining that it is blasphemous, and want it banned. Liveline, one of Ireland’s most popular radio shows, “was flooded with calls,” according to the Guardian. One caller, according to the Guardian story,

 … recounted the story of Our Lady of Guadeloupe and then told how “Microsoft and Nasa” had recently used a special microscope which had proved the miraculous nature of the image of Mary that had appeared on the poncho of Juan Diego.[!!!] Their calls for bans and protests were countered by Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland, who later commented: “It was like discussing the rules of quidditch with people who believe Harry Potter was a documentary.”

The bishop of Cork and Ross declared “Our Lady in a bikini” offensive. … and so the story goes on of the poor religious folk whose sensibilities are hurt by a woman’s interpretation of her own experience of the religious stories surrounding Our Lady of Guadeloupe. The more publicity this gets, and the more often the picture is repeated around the world, and the more people’s noses are rubbed into it, the sooner, perhaps, the religious will learn that we don’t really give a damn about their sensitivities, that they’ll just have to learn to roll with the punches, just like most other people do, and that they have no right, no more than Muslims or Hindus or any other religious do, to call time on someone’s self-expression, just because they are offended. It is precisely this kind of silly roadshow — that religion is so good at — that puts religion on the wanted list, wanted for offences against humanity. Here are the Irish catholics, stirred up by their leaders, all upset because someone has dared to picture the Virgin as a 40 year old woman dressed in flowers held aloft by a butterfly angel, but they weren’t upset for years and years and years when the church treated women like dirt, forced them to slave in laundries, or locked them away as children in reformatories for the crime of being born out of wedlock, and permitted the nuns and the brothers and the priests to abuse them at will. But show a picture of “The Virgin” in flowers and its a blasphemy!  By the Lord Harry, these people have some nerve!

Of course people must be protected, but from what? HaggisforBrains, the Falconer Commission and Tony Zigmond

Standard

A few days ago HaggisforBrains referred me to a presentation by Dr. Tony Zigmond, a psychiatrist, to the Commission on Assisted Dying, chaired by Lord Falconer. Dr. Zigmond’s presentation is particularly interesting and important, because it raises questions about the capacity for choice. Reading elsewhere amongst the presentations, you may come upon one by Lady Onora O’Neill, a philosopher and a baroness, who raises questions about the ability ever to be sure that a person is capable of making an autonomous decision (#28 on the “Read evidence” list). Her concerns, which, as they are represented in the transcription of oral evidence, seem very confused, and certainly very “technical philosophical” (if you like), and scarcely relevant to the points she seems to want to make, end up, after much analysis, with this:

I do not think the legislation, any draft legislation, that I have yet seen, has addressed the question of depressive choice or has addressed the question of, let us say, the choice of those who are manipulated or leaned on, or who wish to convenience their relatives or carers or others. So that’s where I’ll stop but you can see how I tried to link some fairly abstruse considerations about autonomy with some thought about the legislation as it has hitherto been drafted.

I suggest that this is an entirely biased point of view based, not on philosophical considerations, but religious ones having to do with the sanctity of life. I have no evidence for this. I googled Onora O’Neill’s religious beliefs, religion, theology, church affiliation, and came up with nothing. Perhaps someone else would have more luck. But there is, quite independently of any law that might be passed respecting assistance in dying, a Mental Capacity Act which deals with Baroness O’Neill’s concerns. The question of mental capacity does not need to be included in an act governing assisted dying, since the Mental Capacity Act is sufficient to cover all situatons concerning mental competence and decision making in medical contexts.

Continue reading →

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Standard

Lamb of God

The initial foray of the wolf in sheep’s clothing was made a long long time ago. It happened when the first monotheisms hit the stage, and then it was only done — if the Jewish scriptures are anything to go by — in a cautious, let’s see how this goes, sort of way. There is a good deal of evidence in the Jewish scriptures (the Christian Old Testament) that it happened like this, not quite sure whether they were saying that there was only one god, or whether they were saying, instead, that there was only one special god who had chosen them, as a people, for a particularly important mission, although there were other gods for other people. Religious scholars call that henotheism, belief in one’s own special god, while not denying the existence of other gods, the gods of other people.

But the specialness of the Israelite god, amongst the religions of the time in the Mesopotamian world, was a unique departure from the religions that were dominant at that time and in that place. Religions were, at the time, as Jan Assmann says in his book The Price of Monotheism, intertranslatable. Until Akhnaten in Egypt, and the possibly derivative belief in Palestine amongst the Hebrews, who had been led there, so the story goes, by a man with the suspiciously Egyptian sounding name of Moses, there had been a convention regarding the interchangeability and intertranslatability of gods, so that the religion of one cultural group could be seen to be consistent with the religion of another cultural group, and religious relationships between the two could be maintained on this basis. They could even conclude agreements, treaties and covenants with each other, based on this assumption.

Continue reading →

John Polkinghorne loses the thread of the story

Standard

After reading Thompson’s and Aukofer’s Why We Believe in God(s), I scounted around some of the things that I had downloaded over the last few years to find other things that might be somewhere in general vicinity and I came across a very short review by John Polkinghorne of Pascal Boyer’s Religion Explained, entitled “Some of the Truth.” I remember buying Boyer’s book at Chapters in Kamloops, British Columbia, way back in 2003, when the fires were so bad we drove through the mountains from Kamloops to Calgary and never saw a mountain! Anyway, I began reading the book on our trip back across the country, and remember reading this review sometime later, though it was written a couple years earlier. For those of you with access, it can be found in Science (New Series, Vol. 293, No. 5539 (Sep. 28, 2001), p. 2400), but I want to pick out only a couple points from it.

Those of you who are not familiar with John Polkinghorne need be told only that he was a theoretical physicist, studied for the priesthood in midlife after a successful career in science, and was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1982, having begun studies for the priesthood in 1979. According to the Wikipedia article on Polkinghorne:

He said in an interview that he felt he had done his bit for science after 25 years, and that his best mathematical work was probably behind him; Christianity had always been central to his life, so ordination offered an attractive second career.

He received the Templeton Prize in 2002, having written a number of books on the relationship between religion and science. I can never be reminded of Polkinghorne without remembering Simon Blackburn’s remark about him that he “beams out like an Anglican clergyman from central casting, white-haired, wholesome, and radiant: a one-man Ode to Joy.” (Blackburn’s review of Polkinghorne’s The God of Hope and the End of the World, entitled, tellingly, “An Unbeautiful Mind“, is worth reading.)

Continue reading →

Religion and the Rights of Children

Standard

Long ago, when the world was very young, I was in the process of writing a doctoral dissertation on children’s rights. It never got finished, mainly due to a serious problem with allergies which took two or three years to regulate. To this day most of the major food groups are simply inedible for me — no red meat, none of the cabbage family of vegetables: turnip, cauliflower, cabbage, etc., no oranges, bananas, mangoes, papayas, guavas, red grapes (though not, strangely, green ones) — which to this day makes eating a bit of conundrum. Of course, you don’t need to hear about my health problems, but the point of recounting them is simply to say that, while I did give up my PhD project years ago, I never lost my concern for the rights of children. During my life as a priest I was always vaguely troubled by the baptism of children, and the promises that parents are expected to make to bring their children up in the life of the church, inducting them into the faith, and ensuring that they remained faithful to the teachings of the church.

These promises, which are either outwardly or tacitly made by religious parents, to make sure that their children are indoctrinated with church or religious teachings, are reflected in other aspects of religious life. I remember now with amusement, but also cognisant of the seriousness of her deep conviction on the point, the occasion when my wife Elizabeth came with me to an ordination of someone as a priest (a woman as it chanced). In the ordination service the ordinand makes a number of promises and commitments. One of them has to do with seeing that the priest’s family is a model to the Christian community of faithfulness to the teachings of the church, and of the ideal of Christian marriage and family. When we came out of the service — well, there were mutterings under her breath during the service itself! — Elizabeth – no wilting violet she! — expressed her views very sharply both to me and to the bishop about the inappropriateness of the promises the ordinand was expected to make. There was no justification, as she said, to make a person make promises about what another person should believe or how they should live. She would make up her own mind, if you please, and would not be governed by, or limited by Christian ideals or beliefs. Had she been present at my ordination, she said, she would have got up at that point and objected publicly — as doubtless she would have done! (She was herself a nonbeliever, though fully supportive of me and the work I had undertaken to do.) Nor did she think it right for anyone to promise that children should be brought up to believe. What children ultimately believed was their own business, and not the business of the church or any other body with presumed authority.

Continue reading →

Nursing Home Death and Catholic Bishops: a message from an inmate

Standard

There is no help that I know of for nursing home patients. A request to the doctor would only ensure that you were added to the “suicide watch”. I have Primary Progressive MS and have seen many of my friends and acquaintances die either of or with the disease.

I am in constant severe pain and in a wheelchair all the time. I need help going to the toilet and getting into and out of bed. I have some very good carers, but I cannot get them to help me as they would be fired.

Even if I could afford the trip to Switzerland there is no one to go with me, my two sons are against Euthanasia. Now Social Services are threatening to evict me from my current lovely room, as I have run out of money to pay my portion of the Care Costs.

My husband and I had a pact, but he died three years ago from Oesophageal cancer, and yes, he was helped, I was still reasonably active at that time and we had a very good and helpful Doctor. Unfortunately he is now dead himself.

This looks like a long list of woes which is what, I suppose, it is. I have to plan my own death and therefore have to go earlier than I probably would have if everything else was equal. I would like to put one or all of the Catholic Bishops in this situation and see if they are quite as stoic as they purport to be.

– Anne Veasey

from World right-to-die news list, Saturday, 18th June 2011