This BBC News article and this Q&A report on the findings of The Commission on Assisted Dying which says that there is a ‘strong case’ for allowing assisted suicidefor people who are terminally ill in England and Wales. However, the Commision was set up and funded by campaigners who want to see a change in the law and the findings therefore are likely to be biased.
The group are advocating that people who are over 18, terminally ill and judged to have less than a year to live and who are not mentally impaired should be allowed to undertake assisted suicide. It also suggested that the individual be assessed independently by two doctors prior to permission being granted. In addition, the individual or patient should administer the drug and not a relative, friend or doctor.
The government has apparently indicated that there are no plans at present to change the law.
Those who support assisted suicide claim that it is an act of compassion, in order to prevent potential suffering and loss of dignity through the effects of a terminal illness. They propose that an individual has the personal ‘right to death’ and should be allowed to choose when to die if confronted by a terminal condition. Those who support assisted suicide believe in one way or another that death brings a final ending to the suffering of the individual and presumably fail to see any opportunity for healing during the last months of a terminal illness.
There are those who argue otherwise and put forward religious, moral and legal arguments to support their view that assisted suicide should not be legalised. Some argue that it is the start of a ‘slippery slope’ and could result in vulnerable or disabled people feeling co-erced towards choosing death in order to not be a burden on their families. Assisted suicide also relies on the medical experts getting it right every time – re the diagnoses and prognosis with no margin for error. However, there are reports of misdiagnoses and of people living for much longer than predicted by doctors and this also needs to be considered.
Interestingly in a UK survey of medical practitioners re attitudes towards euthanasia and physician assisted suicide, opposition to both practices was highest amongst Palliative Care Physicians and Care of the Elderly Physicians, with more than 90% of Palliative Care Physicians against a change in the law. These are the doctors who work with the terminally ill on a daily basis – the ones most aware of the experiences of this group of patients at the end of life. Some may have expected this group to be pro-assisted suicide as they are perhaps most aware of the suffering patients may experience with advanced disease. However, the other side is that they may also be most aware of the journey a patient with terminal cancer is on and that these patients can have valuable, rewarding, meaningful and even healing experiences right up until the time of death.
But what if we do not just have one life, one incarnation? From an esoteric perspective there is a bigger picture to consider. What if this life is just one of many, many lifetimes or incarnations? What if how we live and die in this life, influences the quality of our life and experiences in the next incarnation? This is not as a form of punishment but just the consequence or fulfilment of energetic laws and is entirely consistent with a God who is Love. Esoterically, we are all on a return journey to God, to Love and we get to choose our path and how long it takes to get there as a consequence of our choices.
Esoterically, there are consequences to all our choices – every single one of them. Illness and disease arise because we live and make choices in separation to the Love that we are. Knowing that lovelessness and the emotions are the energetic root cause of illness and disease, then it is also possible for healing opportunities to occur right up until the patient’s death and death itself is also healing – healing our separation from God, from Love. Even though the body dies from the cancer or terminal condition, the patient can have the opportunity to heal the underlying emotional disharmony that led to the condition in the first place such that this is not carried through to the next incarnation. It is possible for someone to die with cancer in the body and to be healed of the emotional condition that led to it as understood energetically and esoterically. In addition. there can be healing experiences not just for the individual but also between the individual and other family members and the family as a whole.
Furthermore, if someone has re-connected with the Love that they are and truly knows who they are, they can say ‘my body has the cancer, but I do not have cancer,’ for I the soul is pure Love. There is then also a greater acceptance as one realises that this is but one of many incarnations on the return journey to God.
Thus there will undoubtedly be consequences for those partaking in assisted suicide, should it be legalised. Whilst it may appear to end the suffering in this lifetime, the unhealed emotional conditions that led to the cancer or terminal condition, will be carried through to the next incarnation and re-lived again and again until true healing occurs. So instead of cutting short a life in the belief that it will end suffering, would it not be preferable to provide true healing opportunities for those with terminal disease, if they so choose? True healing is where we come to know who we are in-truth as Sons of God, Sons of Love, and live from the innermost of our being that is pure Love and discard the emotional and mind-driven ways of living and being. To finish, I include a modified version of the Expression – I am Love ©
I am
Love
No hurt, nor wound,
No word, nor deed,
No illness, nor disease,
Can alter that
Immutable fact,
I am
Love.
EJ Minford ©
Feel free to share your thoughts/feelings/experiences re terminal illness and healing and/or your views on assisted suicide
oogenhand 