TA reported earlier on this dispute between a journalist and a bishop, here.
Tom Wright has now responded to David Aaronovitch here in The Times under the headline Euthanasia – a murky moral world.
As noted in an earlier comment, the full text of the original Wright quote which was under attack was this:
The irony is that this secular utopianism is based on a belief in an unstoppable human ability to make a better world, while at the same time it believes that we (it’s interesting to ask who ‘we’ might be at this point) have the right to kill unborn children and surplus old people, and to play games with the humanity of those in between.
Revisionism from the Bishop of Durham:
_part of a larger, albeit unorganised, secularising or atheist agenda – pressing in this direction. Such an agenda doesn’t need protest marches. It has powerful politicians and journalists presenting the case._
Ah, pressing in this direction. Well, sort of, are they? What case are they presenting?
_Secondly, I said “surplus” people. It might well be said that they are not “surplus”, but simply “suffering”. Fair point…_
Fair point. Before engaging mouth, engage sufficient brain.
There is a little book, I believe of the comic strip kind, called A 100 Uses of a Dead Cat.
I think it is high time someone came up with The 100 Uses of a Surplus Bishop.
Maybe even someone could produce the 100 Uses of Surplus Pseudo-Intellectuals claiming to be oooh, so independent and “objective” ; = )
We are talking about nothing less than making it OK to kill people in certain (rather murky) circumstances. +Tom rightly points out that in places where euthanasia has been allowed, what was initially highly limited is gradually being expanded to allow for more possible ways of ending lives: a perfect example of the slippery slope if there ever was one. Indeed, people should engage their brains, but the “pseudo-intellectual” attacks (your words, not mine) on +Tom for wanting to protect lives while also offering *real* comfort to those in pain — not just convenient short-cuts — are downright repulsive. What… Read more »
Walsingham, show me the evidence that +Tom is right and that there is a slippery slope. The lastest evidence from the Netherlands and Oregon State in the US is that there isn’t one. It’s not a murky moral world unless you live in the shadows like +Tom.
For one thing, in the Netherlands it was promised over and over again that children under 12 would not and would never be able to participate in so-called “assisted suicide”. How odd, then, that since the 2002 change in the law to permit euthanasia in the Netherlands, there have been several documented cases of children being euthanized (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Verhagen), with no prosecutions, and the so-called Groningen protocol instituted for determining which cases are permissible. Under that protocol, the patient — the child — is not even asked their opinion, but is simply killed on the advice of physicians and consent… Read more »