COMPASSIONATE LAW, LAWFUL COMPASSION?

One more extraordinary decision was made in a law court recently. A woman suffering from an illness which cannot be cured and will become progressively worse wanted to make sure that if she decided to end her life her loving husband would not be prosecuted for helping her  to do that..  This is a heart breaking situation that commands all the sympathy, and uderstanding we can express. A heart breaking situation  and a  reminder that we have the duty and the privilege of easing our human burdens and making our laws minister to  that easement.

It was  an extraordinary decision because there must be few if any – are there any ?- laws penalising people for helping someone to do something that is legal. Of course lawmakers  understand that when you make – or unmake – one law you may have to make  – or unmake – other laws to deal with the consequences of what you have done.  The law which made it illegal to help a person taking his or her own life while in distress was made when   attempting to end one’s own life was illegal. One could see the meaning of that. But when it was no longer an illegal act , must  it be illegal to help ? One could see the meaning of  that as well, but one could see inconsistency too. Judges can say there is no constitutional or other right for anyone  to take his or her own life and this is true – there is a difference between saying an action  is without harm to others and not punishable, and saying a right is conferred to do it. There are many things we disapprove of or are regretful about  and  they are not punishable by law. Some people then are afraid that if you allow active help to someone in distress who wants to end life then you open the way to abuse  both of  law and of helpless people. All that adds to the sorrow and fear which is terrible enough in a grieving family. We would never want to add to that.

Lawmakers are facing a problem also in the laws about abortion. Making something acceptable or at least non-punishable by law always creates worry about abuse of law and of people. That is one of the many problems  of the human condition which we as rational and sympathetic beings have a duty –  a privilege – of solving. That is what  creating a dignified and potentially happy human life is about and it is difficult and cannot be done without  fellow feeling, compassion, realising another person’s pain so acutely that you suffer with them .

We have removed what  used to be called the “stigma” of taking away our own life . And we remember that there have been times in history when ending one’s own life for the sake of others – not losing it but actively ending it – has been publicly called heroic, although we never admitted that it could be other than an exception to the most stringent of human or superhuman rules.

The present state of law  regarding the awful dilemma of a grieving husband and a suffering wife seems to be that there are times when  grief and suffering will dictate certain irresistible measures and those who take them will have to put themselves at the mercy of the courts in the hope that , as the founder of the Christian philosophy of life said , sympathy and compassion will govern law and not the other way about.

Ambition

It is a strange irony. A women dies who quoted  St Francis on the steps of 10 Downing Street and then went and made  war,  a man becomes Pope who  takes the name of Francis so everyone hopes he will make peace. As if two worlds were in conflict  and either one   might just possibly be more likely to win. There has not been a public figure so heartily condemned as Margaret Thatcher or a public figure of whom more is expected than the new pope. Whose work and legacy will be most significant for the world remains  to be seen.

Prime ministers and  popes have  similar problems. Both are surrounded by ambitious people. Either of them  may be ambitious himself or herself. Most of the historical problems of church and state are about ambition. And greed. And the awful struggle between resulting good and ill. Similar problem for both institutions. For instance, massive privatisation  took place when Catholics rebelled against their religious leadership centuries ago and created what became known as the Protestant Reformation, when monasteries  along with their places of refuge, medical facilities and schools were taken over for private profit, even the very stones being used for what became known as “great houses”; present day governments are selling  off what could be, and often are, national possessions to private owners for private profit, so  history is always, as they say, like history. It never happens just once. Church and state and everything else can be, have been,  are being, will be  used for private gain, power or pleasure. The wonder is not that it happens – it would be  a wonder if it didn’t – but that we always seem surprised when it does. Like being surprised if it rains.

One thing we are entitled to be surprised about though is that our universities, media, churches and suchlike seem  so complacent about it ; we may make the excuse – or give as reason- that  the universities have lost their independence, depending for funds too much on government and big business, that the churches  have lost their power to think and speak in realistic moral terms  because they accepted that private and communal obedience are   the  overwhelming  virtues , that the media are advertising media rather than informing media  because they have to survive on money from somewhere and are more likely to get it from those who sell everything than from those who want to know something.  All of this is sadly true but there were  times in our history  when penalties for speaking your mind were much more severe than they are now. Yet some people did it.  And now there are more ways of saying your piece than ever before. For some reason we have not got round to thinking of the communications media  as means for us to say  what we want  to say to the world at large; we seem still to think of the communications media as ways in which “they” will speak to “us”.  We can  think out, write out , arrange, edit , set up books of our own, but many people who have realised this have set about communicating so many trivial – or hurtful – things that many sensible people stand aghast at the frivolity of it all. Nero still plays and sings while Rome burns but our  Nero may live just down the road from us. And in face not just of danger but of such triviality one is tempted to turn away and think of something else.

But the great questions of the world , about good and bad, about happiness and sadness, about sickness and health, about redistributing  the world’s goods not just among the already rich but among us all, these questions are ready and waiting. And we would make a mistake of we are simply waiting also,  for someone else to give us the answers. If Margaret Thatcher ruined some lives and  enhanced some , that is a matter of fact; if a new Pope can make a new Sacred Deal, that’s a  possibility.  But we can  decide what effect if any that has on our lives and do something about it , however small that may seem . The man who wrote , The great appear great because we are on our knees looking up at them, was shot dead for his trouble, but we are still remembering there was great   sense in what he said.

22.4.13