LAST RIGHTS Anne Ashworth In his 1992 SoF Conference address on "The Human Quest for Meaning" Lloyd Geering referred to the freedom both required for and achieved by that quest. It may be objected that freedom, and therefore meaning in life, are luxuries available only to citizens of relatively fortunate communities. The poor and the oppressed, lacking freedom, have little opportunity to choose and create meaning. That is unhappily true.
But there are neglected groups within our, on the whole, affluent and comfortable civilization who remain deprived of meaning, and their numbers are growing alarmingly. For instance, it is estimated that in Britain alone there are 600 new cases of "persistent vegetative state" each year. Some of these could survive for up to thirty years. In whose interest is this? Not that of the inert patients, nor of their friends and relatives; certainly not that of other patients for whom limited medical resources might perhaps be made available if... yes, if the "vegetables" were allowed to die.
Worse, perhaps, are the very old, ready for death but disturbed and distressed by medical intrusion. What they long for, beg for while they have speech, is a dignified exit, the freedom of a meaningful death. `May each one of us be able to die as well' Worst of all is the plight of the irreparably ill. It is claimed that none need suffer agonising pain these days, though we all know cases of prolonged acute suffering. But pain or no pain - what about freedom, what about meaning? The law states that a doctor who treats a competent patient against his or her wishes commits an assault, yet the active prolongation of undesired life is still legally safer for medical staff than assisted death.
That more and more people are appalled by the cruelty of dragged-out suffering, and fear it for themselves, is clear from many broadcasts and press articles and evidenced by the huge increase in membership of VES, the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. The Society provides "Advance Directives" by which people sound in mind can with every safeguard make their wishes known in advance. VES campaigns for a change in the law [the law under which a caring doctor was convicted of "mercy-killing" only last month].
The VES Newsletter of May 1991 carried the story of how one cancer patient chose and arranged her death so that she could "relax and enjoy her dying". It is a reverent and lovely account of a death sought with freedom and full of created meaning for all concerned. "She should have public honour for it", the article concludes. "May each one of us be able to die as well".
Changing times demand fresh ethics. New medical techniques challenge us with questions. The answers require - as in theology - a relinquishment of old dogmatism. If we are serious, and practical, in our search for value and meaning we must confer freedom and dignity on the process of dying.
Anne Ashworth is Reviews Editor of the United Reform Church journal "Reform" and convenor of SoF's North-West Region group. The VES is at 13 Prince of Wales Terrace, London W8 5PG, (tel. 071 937 7770) John's Gospel: the unauthorised version In the beginning was the potential for meaning. "Meaning" and "God" are so close to each other that they are virtually the same.