How ‘voluntary assisted dying’ would change our culture and values

Posted on March 17, 2022 
Filed under Culture wars, Sydney Diocese

“The introduction, last year, of Independent MP Alex Greenwich’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill (2021) (the ‘Bill’) is a momentous shift in medical practice and community expectation. It marks the final abandonment of one of the cornerstones of Western civilisation: the sanctity of life. The idea that all human life is inherently precious was not generally affirmed in the world into which Jesus Christ was born. It spread with the growth of early Christianity and finds expression today in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Advocates of Voluntary Assisted Dying (a deeply misleading cluster of words) have emphasised not the sanctity of life, but quality of life as subjectively experienced, and the primacy of autonomous choice.  Recently, a man said to me, ‘Archbishop, if you don’t want to choose assisted suicide you don’t have to, but don’t get in the way of those of us who want the right to choose’. I understand the depth of feeling and the logic.

But this way of arguing – ‘if you don’t choose it, it won’t affect you’ – is naïve.…”

– Archbishop Kanishka Raffel writes at SydneyAnglicans.net.

See also:

The Archbishop joined The Hon Damien Tudehope MLC (Leader of the Govt in the Legislative Council Professor), Professor Margaret Sommerville AM FRSC (Bioethicist) and Dr Frank Brennan MBBS, DCH, Dip Obs, FRACP, FAChPM, LLB (Lawyer and Palliative Care Specialist) in a special event at St. John’s Parramatta last night.

Watch the full video – and share with friends.

Likewise, please see and share: ePetition: “Please unanimously reject the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021”.