A really beautiful, wise, cathartic piece. Thank you. I know King Lear well and agree that though ‘Men must endure’, through Edgar the play suggests “People who are loved can endure”. The Buddhist physical pain/ mental suffering distinction is also significant because it confirms that those of us with less than perfect lives can endure them so much better if we know that others also see the meaning and value in them that we do. That’s why I’m appalled that the single worst feature of those bill has survived the final vote: doctors being allowed to suggest it to a patient even if they haven’t brought it up themselves. Even some Australian states don’t go that far. If a doctor suggested it to me, I know already I’d be devastated and feel worthless, like I had a duty to die.
I've followed the passage of this bill through parliament with complete disbelief and dismay. During the committee, MPs in favour revealed that they think feeling a burden is a good enough reason and one Labour (yes, Labour) committee member said it was none of anyone else's business what people's reasons were for requesting AD! Safeguarding, what safeguarding? We have a law now where doctors don't even have to ask the reasons for wishing to die, and MPs rejected amendments on this. What sort of society is it that encourages or obliges people to die because they feel like a burden? This is where rampant individualism has led us.
I know - I’ve also followed every stage closely and been appalled by pro-MPs’ ideological determination to remove every safeguard. This kind of morally blind, inverted thinking is what happens when middle-class liberal progressives make a god of individual autonomy, and forget our social obligations to others: by an Orwellian sleight-of-hand, safeguards for the less privileged conveniently become ‘barriers to equal access’, with death as the ultimate capitalist consumer choice.
Shakespeare understood and gave life to the extremes of parent-child relationships in the parent’s twilight, long before our current Parliamentary debate and some of the platitudes and misconceptions its participants resort to. I’m currently reading Rhodri Lewis’s book, Shakespeare’s Tragic Art, and recommend it
A really beautiful, wise, cathartic piece. Thank you. I know King Lear well and agree that though ‘Men must endure’, through Edgar the play suggests “People who are loved can endure”. The Buddhist physical pain/ mental suffering distinction is also significant because it confirms that those of us with less than perfect lives can endure them so much better if we know that others also see the meaning and value in them that we do. That’s why I’m appalled that the single worst feature of those bill has survived the final vote: doctors being allowed to suggest it to a patient even if they haven’t brought it up themselves. Even some Australian states don’t go that far. If a doctor suggested it to me, I know already I’d be devastated and feel worthless, like I had a duty to die.
Thank you so much.
I've followed the passage of this bill through parliament with complete disbelief and dismay. During the committee, MPs in favour revealed that they think feeling a burden is a good enough reason and one Labour (yes, Labour) committee member said it was none of anyone else's business what people's reasons were for requesting AD! Safeguarding, what safeguarding? We have a law now where doctors don't even have to ask the reasons for wishing to die, and MPs rejected amendments on this. What sort of society is it that encourages or obliges people to die because they feel like a burden? This is where rampant individualism has led us.
I know - I’ve also followed every stage closely and been appalled by pro-MPs’ ideological determination to remove every safeguard. This kind of morally blind, inverted thinking is what happens when middle-class liberal progressives make a god of individual autonomy, and forget our social obligations to others: by an Orwellian sleight-of-hand, safeguards for the less privileged conveniently become ‘barriers to equal access’, with death as the ultimate capitalist consumer choice.
Shakespeare understood and gave life to the extremes of parent-child relationships in the parent’s twilight, long before our current Parliamentary debate and some of the platitudes and misconceptions its participants resort to. I’m currently reading Rhodri Lewis’s book, Shakespeare’s Tragic Art, and recommend it
Thanks for the tip - I'll add that book to my reading list.