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Testing the “Right to Die”
Two cases would open path to euthanasia
On October 10, the High Court of Great Britain began hearing testimony in what could be a landmark case for the “right to die” movement. The court hearing was still in process as CWR went to press.
Diane Pretty, who is seeking permission for her husband to help her die, told the High Court she is “frightened and distressed” about the inevitable effects of her terminal illness.
Pretty, a 42-year-old Londoner, has motor-neurone disease, an incurable and progressive illness which will gradually take away her ability to move and communicate with others. She claims her quality of life has become so poor that it would be a human-rights violation to prevent her from committing suicide. She is challenging a refusal by the Director of Public Prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith, to promise that he would not take legal action against her husband of 25 years, Brian, if the husband helped Diane to commit suicide.
Philip Havers, the legal representative for Pretty, told the three-judge panel that her disease was at an advanced stage. He told the court, “She is frightened and distressed at the suffering and indignity which she will have to endure before she dies if the disease is allowed to run its course. She very strongly wishes to control when and where she dies.” He added, “The terrible irony of this case is that her condition prevents her from doing so unaided.” Havers argued that by denying her the opportunity to commit suicide—which is available to other able-bodied citizens—the government was subjecting her to inhuman and degrading treatment, in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
As they arrived at court for the first day of the hearing, Brian Pretty told the BBC, “Did it really have to come this far to allow her to do what she wants? It should never have come this far.”
But Dr. Richard Lamerton of the anti-euthanasia group Alert has warned that if Diane Pretty’s petition is successful, it could set a precedent for doctors killing their patients. He said, “I have considerable sympathy for Mrs. Pretty—motor-neurone disease is awful. But I would hate to endorse Mrs. Pretty’s message of despair.”
Lamerton, who specializes in hospice care for terminally ill people, said not all patients suffering from motor-neurone disease and other debilitating and terminal illnesses are prone to despair. “Most find new depths in relationships, new meanings in life, and enough reasons to go on living,” he said. “If we make it legal to kill [Mrs. Pretty] some very dangerous consequences would follow.”
In a separate case, the High Court ruled on October 8 that doctors should be allowed to withdraw nutrition and hydration—food and water—from a woman who had been in a coma since September 2000. The 45-year-old woman had suffered serious brain damage after choking during a minor surgical operation. Her doctor had applied to the court for permission to bring her life to an end, saying that he had the support of the woman’s family.
Family Division President Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss said, “She would want to die in peace and dignity and not to persist in the twilight limbo in which she exists at the moment . . . She expressed strong views during her life that if she was to be found in this situation she should not be kept alive.” The judge also ruled that neither the woman’s name nor the hospital or staff connected with her should be made public.
Anglican baptisms at an all-time low
An argument for disestablishment?
For the first time in the history of Britain’s state church, the number of baptized Anglicans is less than half of the country’s population.
New research by the University of Sheffield has found that of the babies born in England in 1999, the number baptized into the Church of England dropped to 21 percent. The findings show that there was almost universal baptism before the Second World War, with 75 percent of babies christened in the Church of England in 1933. But since the war the number of baptisms has declined every year, with only one exception in 1950.
David Voas, a demographer at the university’s department of sociology, claims that the minority status of Anglicans threatens the foundations of the church’s establishment. He told the Daily Telegraph, “Religion is being passed down like a recessive gene: it does not generally appear in the new generation unless both the parents match.” He added, “With this pattern of transmission, further erosion in church affiliation is almost inevitable.”
A spokesman for the Church of England challenged the validity of the research. “Baptism introduces people into the Christian family and not into any particular denomination, and so it is difficult to calculate how many end up as Anglicans,” he said. “Anyway we may be less than 50 percent of the population but we are still the largest religious group in the country.”
The spokesman dismissed the claim that a smaller church raised the case for disestablishment. “People of all faiths appreciate the fact that an established Church of England means faith has a place at the center of the state,” he contended.
Speeding up abortions
Group says process is too slow
Britain’s abortion services need a radical overhaul if the process is to be speeded up and government “targets” are to be met, according to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS). But pro-life groups say that women actually need more time to consider what they are doing.
Under the National Strategy for Sexual Health and HIV, the British government has pledged that by 2005, women will be able to obtain an abortion within three weeks. But the BPAS says so many women are demanding abortions that it will be hard to meet those goals.
Spokesman Ann Furedi has called for greater use of the abortion pill to ensure speedier abortions. “We have to break the mold of the way abortions are carried out here,” she told the BBC. “We need to educate women about the options that are available.”
Furedi added, “Women want abortions that are convenient to slot into their lives. They want to be able to come into the clinic and to be able to be treated and to be able to leave within a couple of hours.”
Jack Scarisbrick, national chairman of the pro-life charity Life, said his organization remained adamantly opposed to any plans to cut the time it took for a woman to have an abortion. He said women needed time to think and reflect on what they were doing and that rushing them through on an abortion “conveyor belt” would not give them this time. Scarisbrick said, “What women want is the chance to calm down. They need to have more space. We want the abortion industry to wither away, because that is what is best for women.”
Child protection in every parish
Nolan Commission airs final report
The independent Review on Child Protection in the Catholic Church in England and Wales has presented its final report, entitled
A Program for Action. The report stresses that the Church “should be an example of best practice in the prevention of child abuse” and that every parish, diocese, and religious order should have “preventative policies and practice” which will “minimize the opportunity for abuse.”
Launching the report, Lord Nolan, who chaired the review, described child abuse as “a great evil” and said the Church should be “an example of excellence in rooting it out.”
A Program for Action sets out 83 recommendations including a call for every parish to have a designated child-protection representative. It also suggests that the Sacrament of Reconciliation for children should be administered so that both priest and child can be visible but not heard by others.
The report concludes, “Our hope is that this report will help to bring about a culture of vigilance where every single adult member of the Church consciously and actively takes responsibility for creating a safe environment for children. Our recommendations are not a substitute for this but we hope they will be an impetus towards such an achievement.”
Back to Catholic World Report November 2001 Table of Contents