Religious conservatives - opposing your right to choose
You only have to look to understand who is campaigning against your right to choose an assisted death in the face of intolerable and unrelievable suffering.
A case in point is a massive advertisement published in both of Melbourne’s daily newspapers: News Corp’s The Herald Sun (right-wing) and Fairfax Media’s The Age (left-wing). The ad was published in 2008 when Victorian MLC Colleen Hartland introduced the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill into the State legislature.
The Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, also sent the advertisement as a letter to all members of the Victorian Parliament.1
So, who are the advertisement’s signatories? I’ve listed them all in Table 1.
Table 1: Signatories to the 2008 Victorian anti-assisted-dying advertisement
|
Rt Rev. Graham Bradbeer |
The Rev. Fr Graeme A. Michell, FSSM |
|
Rev. Ross Carter |
Pastor Graham Nelson |
|
Rev. Dr Max Champion |
Rev. David Palmer |
|
Pastor Mark Conner |
Rev. Greg Pietsch |
|
Dr Denise Cooper-Clarke |
Marlene Pietsch |
|
Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen |
Very Rev. Dr Michael Protopopov |
|
Rev. Megan Curlis-Gibson |
Marcia Riordan |
|
Archbishop Dr Philip Freier |
Metropolitan Archbishop Paul Saliba |
|
Imam Riad Galil |
Bishop Peter Stasiuk CSSR DD |
|
Rev. Father James Grant SSC |
Dale Stephenson |
|
Assoc. Professor Afif Hadj MB BS (Melb) FRACS |
Pastor Peter Stevens |
|
Archbishop Denis Hart |
Dr Nicholas Tonti-Filippini |
|
Rev. Fr Geoff Harvey |
Rob Ward |
|
Assoc. Professor Rosalie Hudson |
Jim Zubic |
|
Peter McHugh |
Persons in blue: Career is religion |
Almost all of them are religious by career
To save you a lot of time assessing who these people are, I’ve coloured in blue all the folks whose job it is to espouse religion — at least, their own hierarchy’s view of it.
That’s 27 of the 29 signatories who by career are intensely immersed in their own religious perspective of the world; established and promoted through institutional doctrine.
But what about the other two?
What about the other two signatories, Assoc. Prof. Afif Hadi and Assoc. Prof. Rosalie Hudson (in yellow)?
Notice that Prof. Afif Hadi’s entry lists only his surgery profession. Highly relevant, but not mentioned, is that he was President (previously Vice Chairman) of the Australian and New Zealand Board of Trustees, Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia and New Zealand. As head of the Board of the Archdiocese, his religious signature is intimately entwined with another: Metropolitan Archbishop Paul Saliba, the Primate of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese.
Assoc. Prof. Rosalie Hudson’s listing too, mentions only seemingly secular links. What is omitted is that she is or was Chair of the University of Divinity (a multi-faith religious institution) Human Research Ethics Committee, Secretary of the Uniting Church’s committee on bioethics, a member of the Interfaith Committee, and an Academic Associate at Charles Sturt University’s School of Theology.
Thus, both Prof. Hadi and Assoc. Prof. Hudson are also deeply rooted in religious faith. The point is not to make any criticism of their faith or practice, but merely to observe the deeply religious connections to opposing assisted dying law reform. It’s worth mentioning that both Hadi and Hudson do valuable charity work.
So, all of them are deeply religious
A pertinent question to ask is: ‘What proportion of the signatories are neutral, scholarly researchers who have studied the empirical evidence from jurisdictions where assisted dying is already lawful?’ Answer: None of them. Enough said.
And what proportion of the signatories to this anti-assisted dying advertisement are very deeply invested in organised religion? The simple answer is as usual: 100%, all of them.
Disconnected from their flocks
Critically, these career-religious fail to reflect the views of their own flocks. We know from repeated polls, for example, that three out of four Australian Catholics, more than three out of four Uniting Church members, and four out of five Anglicans (Church of England) support assisted dying law reform.
How have the religious hierarchy become so out of touch? Perhaps Mr Ian Wood, co-founder of Christians Supporting Choice for Voluntary Euthanasia might be able to offer his own insights.
This kind of clerical disconnect from the contemporary will of the people is one of the key reasons Australians are deserting religion in droves, as successive censuses show.
Conclusion
The evidence is irrefutable. Those who are actively organised to oppose your right to choose an assisted death are deeply religious, even when they use seemingly secular arguments (more on those later).
They are entitled to their opinions for themselves. But what right do they have to deny the vast majority of Australians, who do not agree with their views, the right to choose?
To phrase it in the personal, why does the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourrne, Denis Hart, think it appropriate to demand that Mr Geoff Drummond, a Buddhist, should have suffered against his will at the end of life for the Archbishop's version of faith, rather than Mr Drummond's own spiritual beliefs? Why does Rabbi Shimon Cowen think it appropriate to demand that Mr Alan Rosendorff, a fellow Jew, should have suffered against his will at the end of life for the Rabbi's version of faith, rather than Mr Rosendorff's own carefully-considered and deeply-held views? And why does Imam Riad Galil think it appropriate to demand that Mr Peter Short, not a Muslim, should have suffered against his will at the end of life for the Imam's beliefs, rather than his own?
Perhaps hubris remains alive and well amongst religious conservatives?
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Declaration: In fairness to those mentioned in this article, I openly declare that I am agnostic.
References
- Bradbeer, G, Rt Rev., Carter, R, Rev., Champion, M, Rev. Dr, Conner, M, Pastor, Cooper-Clarke, D, Dr, Cowen, S, Rabbi Dr, Curlis-Gibson, M, Rev., Freier, P, Archbishop Dr, Galil, R, Imam, Grant SSC, J, Rev. Fr, Hadj, A, Assoc. Prof., Hart, D, Archbishop, Harvey, G, Rev. Fr, Hudson, R, Assoc. Prof., McHugh, P, Michell, GA, Rev. Fr, Nelson, G, Pastor, Palmer, D, Rev., Pietsch, G, Rev., Pietsch, M, Protopopov, M, Very Rev. Dr, Riordan, M, Saliba, P, Metropolitan Archbishop, Stasiuk, P, Bishop, Stephenson, D, Stevens, P, Pastor, Tonti-Filippini, N, Dr, Ward, R & Zubic, J 2008, Reject physician assisted dying - An open letter to Victorian MPs, Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne, viewed 13 Jun 2008, http://www.cam.org.au/Euthanasia.aspx.