The Great Absent In The UK Euthanasia Law Debate

 

The debate about the UK euthanasia law has started yesterday, and it is polarising the country almost half as much as a selfie of some obscene slut singer or the new diet of some wannabe celebrity. Still, some people are discussing about it.

In a strange phenomenon, which is at the same time indicative of the confusion of our times, (ir)religious leaders like Lord Carey support the murdering of a suicidal person, whilst left-wing newspapers like the “Guardian” do not.

Why does this happen? Because of a fact that you can notice very easily in the newspaper articles of the last days: the factually complete absence of Christian values in the debate.

And in fact, two heathen factions seem to fight for the ground: those who think that it is good to allow someone who wants to dispose of himself to do it, and those who fear that this would lead to pressure to old vulnerable people to do what they do not want to do. The implicit concession that there shoul dbe some sort of understanding for people who want to commit suicide is clear enough; at the very least there is no vocal debate about the point.

That no one, absolutely no one could ever have any right to kill himself just because he is ill, or suffering; and that this is pretty much the worst sin imaginable (worse than sodomy! Yes, worse than sodomy!) no one seems to remember, much less say out loud.

The debate is entirely secular, and the pros and cons are seen from an entirely secular perspective.

It is also an absurd debate, because it is a debate run from a position of forgetfulness of its very ethical bases.

 If there is no God, it makes perfectly no sense to claim that it be bad that vulnerable people may be put under pressure to die. If there is no God, the question whether any person has any right to live when he is not of use to the community is a perfectly sensible one. If there is no God, we are just a very sophisticated termite nest, and there is no objective rule as to how the nest should be run. Actually, if there is no God and we are all destined to be born, live a short life and and die into nothingness, the most practical thing to do is to maximise the survival chances of the termite nest by getting read of all elements of weakness making it either more vulnerable to other nests (or nations), or else decreasing the utility of the strong termites contributing to the strenght of the nest.

But the fact is, there is God: and this God is not only the one who will judge Lord Falconer and his accomplices when the day of their redde rationem comes, but it is also the God who has given us the Christian values on which our societies rest.

A discussion on values in which God is absent, and which therefore forgets the basis and origins of those very values that are being discussed, seems outright absurd to me, and a losing strategy to boot; because make no mistake, unless the root of morality is found in God, the stupid oxes will happily be led by the nose from the masters of the usual slogans of “mercy”, “freedom” and “compassion”.  In the emasculated, utterly duty-allergic society in which we live, these emotional calls to “freedom” will always prevail over the embarrassed calls to prudence of those who are against, but can’t really say why.

It is only a matter of “safeguards”? Well, then you’ve lost already.

It is a matter of values? Well, then think what these values are, and why you value them, and why you should protect them.

This euthanasia battle is, I think, already lost; because the troops on the right side have completely forgotten why they are fighting.

Mundabor