England’s Daily Mail is reporting:
”. . . a bishop representing the national church has now sparked controversy by arguing that there are occasions when it is compassionate to leave a severely disabled child to die.
“And the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler, who is the vice chair of the Church of England’s Mission and Public Affairs Council, has also argued that the high financial cost of keeping desperately ill babies alive should be a factor in life or death decisions. ”
Butler has obviously overlooked an important warning from Jesus himself. “Whatever you do to the least of these, you have done it to me” (Matthew 25:40).
Some thoughts on euthanasia
Some thoughts on the treatment of the disabled
Story from DailyMail.com
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November 14, 2006 at 09:57
I am an Evangelical Anglican…yes there is such a thing! I am only just hearing about this now and have not read the full report, but at first glance this seems repulsive to me, and I have to believe is way outside the mainstream of even the Anglican church worldwide…
November 14, 2006 at 15:14
Surely he could’ve come up with a better reason than financial cost . . . “Sorry M8, I just can’t afford to keep you alive right now.”
November 14, 2006 at 16:51
God has a purpose and plan for everyone, even disabled and ill babies. ALL children are precious.
November 14, 2006 at 21:07
Back when the Terri Schiavo horror was going on, my husband and I spoke to one of our representatives. The sad truth is in our state there are laws protecting animals from such treatment, but none protecting human beings.
Abortion started off as “protecting women from back alley abortions, rape and incest victims.” It was only to be performed in the first trimester. Now, we have partial birth abortions, talk of killing less than perfect babies, sex-preference abortions.
The truth is when you break the barrier of respect for life, it doesn’t stop. Remember the movie, “Gone With The Wind.” Breaking the barrier of profanity opened a floodgate of filthy language, which gets worse every day.
All of these so-called altruistic reasons for abortion and euthanasia will someday backfire big time. Just make sure you’re never sick, never disabled and never grow old. Otherwise, you’re fair game.
November 15, 2006 at 03:33
Well said. Really. Very well said.
November 16, 2006 at 08:27
There is a very big difference between “euthanasia” and deciding NOT to employ “heroic meansures”. The so-called “caretakers’ of Terri Schiavo withheld the “basic neccessities” of life. Heroic measures were NOT being employed with Terri, thus what happened to her was, ethically, tantamount to euthanasia.
On the other hand, using all sorts of medical knowledge/equipment to maintain life (the “heroic measures” mentioned above) IS appropriate in the short term when there is reasonable expectation that the body will be able to recoup, and then sustain itself (as in, for example, an accident, or head trauma involving injury, which will resolve with treatment), or in instances of illnesses [such as stroke/heart attack] when initially the person may need additional support, until the immediate causative factor/s resolve.
I know (from personal as well as professional experience) that there are indeed situations wherein providing only “natural” medical support [air/fluids/nutrition](tube feedins is considered “natural”, btw).
Sometimes,taking such a course results in the eventual death of the person [for example, the removal of artificial respiratory support/s which “breathe” for the person].
Pray for those of us who must today, this hour, this minute, choose whether or not to continue heroic measures for our loved ones. Consider for yourself what measures YOU want employed if you become gravely ill/injured, and require, long-term, that your life be artificially sustained. And write down those wishes; and talk, communicate with those close to you, so that they will know; and ask them what their beliefs/wishes are on this subject.
November 17, 2006 at 00:31
You know I tried to think about this objectively about the compassion but exactly who gave us authority to be GOD? No it’s not right for anyone to take another’s life because God decides that not us. That would almost be like saying that abortion was right and that is clearly not. I think we all have a purpose, that if we exist on this earth that God put us here for a reason and that reason is not for being put down like an animal. Has people stop believing in miracles? Have people stopped putting their trust in the Lord? If God thought it was best for that child to pass on then God would take that child. He wouldn’t leave it up to you to decide. Come on!
November 19, 2006 at 01:09
I think we forget that we are equally playing God when we artificially sustain life. If God creates certain conditions for death, who are we to decide that life is what God wants?
I think if we apply the principles of love we might be able to look at what each individual prefers. I certainly don’t want life at all costs. There is a certain point for each individual where life begins to lose its meaning.
I don’t believe that God put us here to see who can hold out the longest. I read that the purpose of life is abundance.
If we choose where that line is for everyone, are we not playing God as well?
Just some thoughts.
November 24, 2006 at 14:21
I have a young friend at my church who was in a baby carriage hooked up to oxygen tubes when I first met him. He was born many weeks premature, for purely physical reasons. Doctors had said he wouldn’t live. Our pastor made a point of saying “the doctors said no, and God said yes.” In the next few years, when I got to know him, he could not use his legs. He could crawl with great enthusiasm. He could understand the world around him enough to drive past McDonald’s and say “Mommy, fries and shake.” He had to be carried everywhere—and had many people of many ages who loved to do so. Now, at age 7, after many operations that were no doubt very expensive, he can walk, sometimes aided by crutches, and always with a brace, which means he cannot bend at the knees. After a few more operations, he will be able to do that too. He calls me by name and seeks me out as adult company.
I also know a family with a two year old daughter, whose entire life has been spent in the hospital, getting one operation after another, hooked up to tubes, never growing larger than a new-born infant. Leukemia is only one of her life-threatening problems, and she’s had two bone marrow transplants. She is currently under sedation for weeks, because she can’t breath on her own and needs artificial assistance and more tubes to live. Perhaps it would have been merciful to withhold all these operations, give whatever love she could receive for the short time given to her, and allow her to peacefully pass on from this world. (But I haven’t met her, as I have the young man I first referred to). Her mother says, if my child dies, I want to know I did everything I could to save her.
It is a hard question to establish any hard and fast universal rules for. I would certainly say that “do no harm” is the foundation for any decision, and that taking the life of any person born is never acceptable. But we really have to allow families to grapple with this, seek whatever help they need, and not be quick to judge. Somehow, I just can’t fit “the cost to society” into this equation. They tried that in Oregon, and patients who could have lived long lives after well-established transplant operations were simply allowed to die.
November 29, 2006 at 12:31
I think the bishops wording is wrong ”...compassionate to leave a severely disabled child to die.” but I don’t think he is wrong. As a mother, I can’t even imagine what it must feel like to have to help make the decision to allow my child to die. I would always wonder “what if?” and I know I would want to spend every possible second of life with my child, but I feel that would be selfish of me considering the amount of pain and stress my precious baby was or would go through to sustain life. Since the newborns surrounding the debates are those with severe spina bifida, rare skin diseases, and infants that,(according to previous cases with the same conclusive outcomes
of an inevitabilitly short, painful, lifespan) are severely disabled and will have a very poor quality of life. Would you want to be in constant pain and cause great distress on your family? I certainly wouldn’t.
And I agree with the person who said we are playing God by intervening with life support, because maybe God intended death for that person.
By nature humans are compassionate. We instinctively want to “save” others’lives, but where is the so called “line” between intervention and Gods plan?
As far as the comment ”...that the high financial cost of keeping desperately ill babies alive should be a factor in life or death decisions.” is concerned, I think it was very distasteful, rude, un-sympathetic, and down right un-Godly. Gods children do not come with a instruction manual, nor do we come with a price limit. Our lives are worth more than pieces of paper and coins, so to say the financial cost should be a factor, is irrelevant.