Physician-assisted Suicide and militant secularism

[Steve Hayes]

Yesterday on the eNCA news channel in South Africa there were reports
that the Congress of the People Party (COPE) would be sponsoring a
Bill in Parliament about "living wills".

While I don't have any strong objections to that in principle (though
I haven't seen the terms of the Bill), the spokesman for Cope and
DignitySA,who are sponsoring the Bill, went on to say that they would
later be advocating physician-assisted suicide, and said that religion
and morality should have no role in public life in a secular state.
That I do have strong objections to.

I've written about this in a blog post, which you can see here:

https://khanya.wordpress.com/2018/08/07/i-cant-cope-any-more/

I have also posted links to the blog post on Twitter (@hayesstw) and
Facebook. Whether you agree with what I said in the article or not, I
think it is important that we discuss the issues raised by this, which
is I see as two-fold:

1. Even though most political parties support the pro-death culture in
one way or another (war, abortion, capital punishment,
physician-assisted suicide, etc.), can one vote for a party that
wants to extend this still further?

2. Can one accept the idea that religion and morality have no role to
play in public life in a secular society?

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by Steve Hayes
Yesterday on the eNCA news channel in South Africa there were reports
that the Congress of the People Party (COPE) would be sponsoring a
Bill in Parliament about "living wills".
While I don't have any strong objections to that in principle (though
I haven't seen the terms of the Bill), the spokesman for Cope and
DignitySA,who are sponsoring the Bill, went on to say that they would
later be advocating physician-assisted suicide, and said that religion
and morality should have no role in public life in a secular state.
That I do have strong objections to.
https://khanya.wordpress.com/2018/08/07/i-cant-cope-any-more/
Facebook. Whether you agree with what I said in the article or not, I
think it is important that we discuss the issues raised by this, which
1. Even though most political parties support the pro-death culture in
one way or another (war, abortion, capital punishment,
physician-assisted suicide, etc.), can one vote for a party that
wants to extend this still further?
2. Can one accept the idea that religion and morality have no role to
play in public life in a secular society?

I'm very resistant to the notion that morality and religion somehow go together, that to have the first you have to have the second. This can't be demonstrated, it's just claimed. Besides, once we answer "yes" to that question there is a second question: Which version of which religion?

The people who link the two are always religious. THEY have the agenda. The agenda is that their particular religion must get special status and that the agreement with their maker that they have entered into must bind all people.

Also, this bill would result in granting of rights to terminally ill people. It's like pro-choice legislation. It allows something to happen, but it forces nobody to take that option.

[z]

http://put.hk/reader/news.neodome.net/za.politics.html


yeah