wfn.org | [ACNS] Archbishop of Canterbury - Elderly Deserve Protection

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

ACNS 4030     |     LAMBETH	|     6 SEPTEMBER 2005

Archbishop of Canterbury - Elderly Deserve Protection

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams gave a sombre warning
that a more permissive approach to euthanasia and assisted suicide in
Britain could undermine fundamental commitments to the needs of the
elderly.

In a keynote speech on the challenges confronting an aging society, Dr.
Williams said:

"The current drift towards a more accepting attitude to assisted suicide
and euthanasia in some quarters gives me a great deal of concern. What
begins as a compassionate desire to enable those who long for death
because of protracted pain, distress or humiliation to have their wish
can, with the best will in the world, help to foster an attitude that
assumes resources spent on the elderly are a luxury."

Dr Williams added: "Investment in palliative medicine, ensuring that
access to the best palliative care is universally available, continuing
research not only into the causes but into the behavioural varieties of
dementia and so on - how secure would these be as priorities if there
were any more general acceptance of the principle that it was legitimate
to initiate a process designed to end someone's life?"

In his speech to mark the centenary of the charity, Friends of the
Elderly, Dr Williams made clear that he does not regard this potential
erosion as the intention of proponents of change: "I am certainly not
ascribing to the defenders of euthanasia or assisted dying any motive
but the desire to spare people unnecessary suffering. But I think we
have to ask the awkward question about how this might develop in a
climate of anxiety about scarce resources."

Dr Williams, who is Patron of the society, also examined the impact of
advertising and marketing cultures on attitudes towards older people and
argue that ageing has to be seen as a "a spiritual issue" in order to
see more clearly and promote its positive role and dimensions:

"Work, sex, the struggle to secure our position or status, the world in
which we constantly negotiate our demands and prove ourselves fit to
take part in public life - what is there outside all this that might
restore some sense of a value that is just given, a place that doesn't
have to be earned? A healthy attitude to the elderly, I believe, is one
of the things that can liberate us from the slavery of what we take for
granted as the 'real' world... Contempt for older citizens, the
unthinking pushing of them to the edges of our common life, is a sure
sign of a shrivelled view of what it is to be human."

Friends of the Elderly web site can be found here:
http://www.fote.org.uk

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