The VE Bulletin Excerpts
'No price is too high to pay for
the privilege of owning yourself' Rudyard Kipling
Vol 18: No 1 March 2001
SAVES Library: new acquisition
'Dying with Dignity'- A Plea for Personal
Responsibility, by Hans Kung and Walter Jens. The Continuum Publishing
Co, New York 1995
In discussing the question of responsibility for
our own dying, the internationally renowned theologian Hans Kung and the
distinguished literary critic Walter Jens examine the case for voluntary
euthanasia in certain well-defined circumstances and come down firmly in
favour of it.
"Who has responsibility for dying? As a believer,
I know that the life of God is a gift, but I also know that at the same
time it is a human responsibility (first of my parents and then my own).
One cannot simply 'leave everything to God' at the end of one's life, any
more than one can at the beginning. And just as the Roman teaching on birth
control has led us into a cul-de-sac, so too has its teaching on help in
dying.
No, human responsibility does not cease in dying,
but here is called for one last time, to the degree that a person consciously
experiences this phase. And why should I give up responsibility in particular
for the last phase, having been asked to be responsible throughout a long
life? Why should I not be able to give my life back into God's hands after
a mature examination of my conscience? Precisely because a human being
never ceases to be a 'person'…he or she should be able to make a decision
in personal dignity…" (Hans Kung)
Now available for loan by SAVES members.
13 March 2001
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