Keywords: Margaret Somerville
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AUSTRALIA
- Margaret Somerville
- 03 June 2021
80 Comments
The case against euthanasia is much more difficult to promote, not because it is weak — it is not — but because it is much more complex.
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AUSTRALIA
- Margaret Somerville
- 03 June 2021
9 Comments
No one on either side of the debate wants to see people suffer and the euthanasia debate is not about if we will die — we all will at some point. The debate is about how we will die and whether some ways of dying, namely euthanasia, are unethical and dangerous, especially to vulnerable and fragile people, and destructive of important shared values on which we base our societies.
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RELIGION
- Hoa Dinh
- 22 September 2017
22 Comments
Euthanasia legislation would lead to further coercion against vulnerable persons in society: the elderly and people with disability. Once voluntary suicide is legalised, to continue living becomes a choice that people will have to justify to themselves, their family, and society. It is especially the case for persons who have to depend on the assistance of others: the elderly, and people with disability.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 03 December 2015
The consideration of medico-legal problems in the public square of a pluralistic democratic society keeping pace with profound technological change is often marked by simplistic assertions, precluding considerations of comprehensive world views, whether religious or philosophical. It is now commonplace for doctors to be told to leave their consciences at the door, as their patients are consumers and they are suppliers and of course the market decides. Debates about law and policy are often resolved with simplistic assertions about individual rights and autonomy, with little consideration for the public interest, the common good, and the doctor-patient relationship. Even conscience is said to be a matter for contracting out. This evening I ask whether there are more compelling ways to resolve medico-legal dilemmas, while conceding a limited role for law in determining the range of acceptable answers.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 27 November 2015
2 Comments
'The crisis of child sexual abuse in our societies has required that our institutional procedures be more transparent and that we learn from the ways of the world in exercising power openly and justly. This means we have to restructure some of our church arrangements so that power is exercised accountably and transparently. All of us who have positions of influence and power in institutional churches need to be attentive to the voices of those who have suffered within our institutions.' 'Discerning the place for the prophetic voice and pragmatic cooperation of the churches in the great moral questions of the age', address to the Association of Practical Theology in Oceania conference, 26 November 2015.
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