On the radar?

Last Wednesday I spent the day (well, from midday to 5 o'clock) being interviewed for a 2nd-year Film Production assignment, by three students from the University of Gloucestershire. The documentary was, predictably, a "balanced" 9-minute film on assisted suicide. I was providing the balance. It was a long afternoon.

Near the end the chap interviewing said he had two questions from one of Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society)'s extensive staff, Mylinh Cao (their press trainee). My ears pricked up at that point. I felt vaguely flattered that I featured on DiD's radar!


First question: "We've noticed that your articles don't give you the title 'Rev' nowadays. Is there a reason for this?" Answer: "a. I'm retired. b. It's no secret. c. It's irrelevant. d. It's just cheap for people to diss views with a 'He would say that, wouldn't he?' whereas the arguments are too important for that.


Second question: "Is your attitude to assisted suicide a result of your religious beliefs?" Answer: "My view is primarily based on societal reasons. It's to do with the effects on the disabled and aging. A society that doesn't value human life is in trouble. So is one that allows people to terminate each others' life. Clearly my faith in God is important and informs all my life, including my philosophy of life. But in fact everyone has a faith of some sort - whether it's in God, or in science, or in technology, or in atheism, or in nothing. We all start with presuppositions. The question is what's the substance of the arguments.

I was interested to read that Canada has its own phoney enquiry into assisted suicide which has just reported. I read this on the Secondhand Smoke blog:

I Told You The Fix Was In On Canadian Euthanasia Panel

Wednesday, November 16, 2011, 12:11 PM

Wesley J. Smith

The in-the-tank media is huffing and puffing, trying to make something important out of an entirely predictable recommendation by the Royal Society of Canada commission to legalize euthanasia.  But commissions can be created to obtain a specific result, as this one was and did.

In fact, I told you this very thing would happen two years ago, to be precise, on October 28, 2009.  Here’s the Secondhand Smoke post, “Stacking the Deck for Euthanasia in Canadian ‘End of Life’ Commission” in its entirety:”

“Expert commissions” to advise on contentious issues of public policy are usually political tools designed to come to a predetermined conclusion in order to pave the way for a desired  policy changes.  Remember that as we take a look at a new commission being appointed by the Royal Society of Canada to look into end of life issues.  From the story:

Queen’s Philosophy professor Udo Schuklenk has been selected to head a prestigious new international panel on “End-of-Life Decision Making” in Canada. Appointed by the Royal Society of Canada, the expert panel will investigate key aspects of this critical issue – including voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide – and prepare a public report.

Stories such as this never seem to look deeper than the job titles of the panelists, as if they come to their work with no preexisting positions. So, I decide to check, starting with Udo Schuklenk.  What a surprise: He’s a pro euthanasia philosopher. How do I know?  He’s said so.  For example, in an essay explaining why he is an atheist, he wrote:

No matter how unbearably patients suffer due to illness or injury toward the end of their lives, the world’s monotheistic religions stand as one in their rejection of many dying patients’ requests to end their lives in dignity. That we may well be of sound mind, and that there is no prospect of our condition improving, makes no difference to their stance. Our own considered judgment that life is not worth living any longer counts for nothing to organized monotheistic religions. According to them, we are not ethically entitled to ask for physician assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia. This is surprising, given that at the end of our natural lives churches have promised us that we would be going to heaven – or hell, as the case might be. If at the end of a decently lived life we would go to heaven and enjoy eternal life, why are they fighting our earthly death so vigorously? None of this makes any sense at all if we take religious beliefs about our afterlife seriously. Once again substantial, avoidable human suffering is a direct consequence of religious interference with our end-of-life decision-making.

I don’t care about his religious views, but to chair a panel with such a clear view in favor of assisted suicide, indicates the direction in which the commission’s recommendations are expected (designed) to go.

But perhaps I am being too cynical.  Let’s see who else is on the commission:  Ah, Scot philosophy professor Sheila McClean who wrote The Case for Assisted Suicide, a book described as arguing fervently in favor of legalization.  Hmm, I wonder how she will vote?

Another commissioner is a Dutch euthanasia researcher.  Cute.

Then there’s Jocelyn Downie, author of Dying Justice, a book urging the decriminalization of both euthanasia and assisted suicide.  The bias isn’t even subtle.

I spent some time researching the views of the two remaining members, but neither seemed to be particularly involved in the issue.  So let’s count them, at least for now, as neutrals. No matter: Even assuming both are as adamantly opposed to assisted suicide as their co panelists appear to be for it, the deck is stacked, the fix is in, 4-2 for permitting assisted suicide in at least some cases.

The next step in this Kibuki Theater will be for the media to trip over themselves to report breathlessly that “the experts” have deeply pondered, and determined–after much hand wringing, there is always hand wringing–that assisted suicide should be allowed.  It is all so scripted and predictable.

Gee, I was right.  But then, on these matters, I usually am.

Watch out for the same coming here when the so-called "Commission on Assisted Suicide" under Lord Falconer reports in the next few days or weeks. You may recall that 9/12 of the commission members had previously pronounced in favour of assisting people to die. The Commission is funded by Terry Pratchett (assisted suicide campaigner), and the brainchild of ... guess who? ... Dignity in Dying - otherwise known as ....

Meeting Tony

I first heard of Tony Nicklinson when Radio 5 Live's Victoria Derbyshire Show came from his home last year. He was campaigning for a change in the law to protect from prosecution someone assisting a person unable themselves to commit suicide. He himself had a massive stroke six or seven years ago which has left him in a "locked-in state". It's a wretched condition. He's totally paralysed, except for his head. He communicates via a computer which he operates by the blink of an eyelid. He has carers to get him up and in the evening, as well as an all-night carer. He lives in a nice bungalow home with his wife, Jane, and one of his two daughters. Even so it's not much of a life, and one can understand his wanting out.

As you'll have gathered, we were meeting as part of a projected BBC Inside Out West programme for October. The BBC obviously thought that getting two crocks with opposite views about ending life would make good TV, and so Jane and I agreed to go over yesterday to his home in Melksham in order to be filmed in discussion, or "debate" as Tony preferred to call it. It was bright and sunny, the wheat and barley fields beginning to turn to gold as we drove across the Downs - the best of English summer days. Then it was along the motorway and down the A350. Jane timed it perfectly, drawing up on the dot of 11 o'clock. There was Kirsty's Ka and, presumably, the cameraman's VW estate. The house was obvious, with its ramp and extension. Outside was a skip full of builders' rubbish. Kirsty, the producer, popped out as we arrived, radio mike in hand. So once I was installed in my wheelchair and wired up, Steve the cameraman took over, and we had all the rigmarole of meeting and then pretending to meet Tony and Jane - knocking, "Oh hello, nice to meet you etc...."

Then it was into the sitting room for the real business. By the time we had two wheelchairs, Tony's flatscreen computer with its stand, and the camera and sound boom in there wasn't room to swing a mouse, let alone a cat. In the end we were ready for the conversation. It transpired that Tony and I were going to be left to get on with it. The format was basically him putting questions to me and my answering. It was a slow process as he had to type his questions blink by blink on to the computer, which then spoke to me, and I then answered, which isn't itself a fast process. He asked me if I wanted the law on suicide changed, to which my answer was No, because I don't want the taking of life to be sanctioned in any form. Was that because of my religion? Probably. My faith affects my whole life, but it's not the only reason. There are other factors why I think it's a dangerous idea. And so we went on.

I suppose the nub of the argument was his insistence of having the choice, which he reckoned I still had and he certainly doesn't. Afterwards I reflected that, in fact, I would be physically very hard pushed to commit suicide, even if I wished to, which I don't. He feels it's a matter of equality, that those who are physically incapable are discriminated against by that fact. He'd produced a "scheme" which, he reckons, would afford immunity to those who helped people like him die. I felt that "my choice" can't trump all other considerations. Our choices have consequences for other people. "No man is an island". My main point was that once we open the door to allow the taking of human life in any circumstances it sets a precedent. At one point I asked him about the good things in his life - which, unsurprisingly, he couldn't see. I was fairly convinced that there were some. I felt we were really talking at that point, not just debating. I hope that survives the final editing.

Not Steve our cameraman, but you get the idea
of the size of the camera

Because, evidently, there is much more material on tape than can be used in a 10-minute programme. I guess we were filmed for getting for a couple of hours, as well as the filming that Kirsty has done before with us and Tony's wife Jane. We eventually called a halt to the filming, partly because the poor cameraman was wilting (with the camera on his shoulder the whole time), partly because we were beginning to go round in circles, and partly because I felt tired. And so we parted. And hoped to keep in touch.

We decided to do something entirely different on the way home - and so we did. We stopped at Morrisons' Chippenham store, made use of their facilities and had some lunch in their café. Not exactly haute cuisine, or even, to be honest, moyenne, but rather refreshing ambience and very sympathique staff. It was fine. Suitably fortified, we made for the motorway, the hills and home. Thank you, those of you who remembered us. It makes a difference.

Filming again

While the News of the World was being unmasked as the lowest form of tabloid newspaper (though squeaky clean now, as News Corp would have us believe, to the background noise of shredders and disc-wipers), we saw on TV reports of a monumental tragedy beginning to unfold once again in the Horn of Africa. This is how the Disaster Emergencies Committee described it:

DEC Chief Executive Brendan Gormley said: “Slowly but surely, these people have seen their lives fall apart – crops, livestock and now their homes have been taken by the drought. They’ve been left with no alternative but to seek shelter and life-saving help elsewhere. We have a duty to help quickly before the situation spirals out of control.” 
                                                
Large areas of Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia are affected and the DEC appeal will also include South Sudan – set to become the world’s newest country on July 9.


More than 1,300 people a day, the majority of them children, are arriving in the Dadaab refugee camp in eastern Kenya near the border with Somalia.

The Dadaab camp was already the world’s largest refugee camp with a population of 350,000 – larger than the city of Leicester.


“Of course these people need a long-term solution with investment and political will – but right now it’s about preventing a tragedy,” said Mr Gormley."Many of these are a forgotten people, caught in the midst of conflict in Somalia and an ever-worsening environmental crisis.”  

Against the background of the one sordid and the other shocking news stories, I'm reluctant to blog about the mundane events of my life. I feel like one of those "petty men" whom Cassius described. Come to think of it, he could have been talking about Rupert Murdoch, couldn't he? Picture Ed Miliband as Cassius and David Cameron as Brutus, in PMQs:

Artist's impression of the Colossus
of Rhodes

"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of the fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings." The interesting question is whether any of our politicians is willing to sever their links with the Colossus, and inflict "the unkindest cut of all". Of course their problem is what happened to Brutus and Cassius!

And, by the way, there was a good and thoughtful comment in Friday Night Theology headlined "How can I plan a holiday, now I know about this tragedy?" Helpful and worth a read.

However, I'm not a political blogger (much!), so back to my week. It's been busy, but my big event was being interviewed and filmed by Kirsty Hemming from BBC West. She's a producer for Inside Out West and is working on a programme to go out in the autumn at about the time Lord Falconer's "commission" brings out its "conclusions". She came here to see us on Thursday. She was very nice - but then good interviewers are! They need to set you at your ease.

Well, she interviewed me in the conservatory for about half an hour, and then we took her to have lunch at my favourite coffee shop, Cornerstone, where she did a bit more filming. In the event very little of the tape will appear in the final programme, of course. Editing is the creative part of filming, which of course allows the editor to put a slant on the film. I suspect, however, that Kirsty will maintain a fair balance. On Monday we're off for another session of filming, with Tony Nicklinson, who has locked-in syndrome and wants the law on ending your life to be changed. He has to communicate using his computer. The idea is for us to discuss the pros and cons. I suspect that won't be easy in any way. But I hope we get on all right.