Category: Death and Dying

 The Commission on Assisted Dying published its report yesterday. It has concluded that it is possible to devise a legal framework that would set out strictly defined circumstances in which terminally ill people could be assisted to die. The work was funded by Sir Terry Pratchett and Bernard Lewis, both advocates of assisted dying.  I […]

Here ois a piece from BBC Radio wales ( starts 48 minutes 56 seconds in)   http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b018lc28/

‘Why I Rejected the Report Calling for Assisted Suicide in the UK One of the commissioners who worked on a report into assisted dying has rejected its conclusions. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth A report by the Commission on Assisted Dying which claimed there is a “strong case” for allowing assisted suicide was “not in the position to […]

http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/hub.1324331373.html   From the Yorkshire Post Doctors may get power to help terminally ill people end life Published on Wednesday 4 January 2012 18:52 Doctors could be given the right to help terminally-ill people to die, under proposals in an influential report published today.   Adults who are likely to have less than a year […]

As I return from a relaxing post Christmas break I am preparing for what is bound to be a media storm tommorrow morning as the Report from the Commission is published   “The current legal status of assisted dying is inadequate and  incoherent…” My own position will be made clear in the Report but here are […]

  All of us swim in the one sea of our lives, trying to stay afloat as best we can, clinging to such life-lines and preservers as we might draw about us: reason and science, faith and religious practice, art and music and imagination. But in the end the wall go down, we all sink, […]

  What might it mean this Advent to follow St Benedict’s injuction to keep death daily before our eyes? Perhaps our friends might think us morbid; but we could discover in this embrace a better way to live. Keeping death daily before our eyes means thinking about how our own death could be happy. This […]

    When death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than […]

  But Lord Falconer, who is chairing the Commission On Assisted Dying, said it would be “objective, dispassionate and authoritative”. It will receive evidence from experts and the public before publishing a report in December 2011. Earlier this year the Crown Prosecution Service issues new guidelines. The clarification of the law, issued in February came […]

On Thursday eevening I had the pleasure of talking to clergy from Sion College – and as well as their warm hospitality I found them altogether a sane, humane and reflective bunch. The reflections following a tour of Highgate Cemetery. Here is an edited part of the talk: Victorians really knew how to say goodbye. […]

In his living and in his dying. Michael knew the joy of contemplating God and the delight of living virtuously. Without realizing it, such people are fulfilling St Benedict’s injuction to keep death daily before our eyes. They would be surprised if anybody called them morbid; rather, they would insist that they had found a […]

A book review that appeared in last weeks Church Times Death: Our Future Christian theology and funeral practice Edited by: Peter C. Jupp November 2008; Epworth Press; Paperback; 300pages; £25.00; ISBN:  9780716206385           In an age dominated by consumerism, the physical and the ideals of strength and youth, it takes courage and imagination to […]

Have a look at this web page which is the fruit of collaborative work with Pauline Smith: www.wellbeingindying.org.uk        www.wellbeingindying.org.uk