From beginning to end of life, and all along the way, there are issues. At the beginning choosing to have a baby. Towards the end of life, choosing how to die. Questions they are of live and let live, and not new questions. They are questions that will persist.
The New Zealand Parliament was presented with proposals to allow what is called choice. The practice of abortion was decriminalised in March 2020. Abortion on demand is now legal up to and including 20 weeks of pregnancy, and there are circumstances for providing abortion beyond 20 weeks. Some New Zealanders also want to have the so called right to die with dignity, and there are people prepared to facilitate this future for their fellow citizens. It seems that so far, debate over these issues has centred upon human reasons. People across each side presented their own human ethical reasons for the stances they took. Those who are working to support a legal right to terminate the life of unborn children and the premature death of the sick and elderly were asked ‘what next’?
What will become clearer? Sadly, that human reason needs saving from itself, both socially and at the level of the individual. The time is at hand when those who have opposed abortion and euthanasia, without forsaking their human reasoning, need to open and reveal the treasury of their faith traditions. People who believe there are other sources of knowledge and wisdom that enlighten human reason should be given a call to advance positions from the perspectives of their faith. The benefit would be twofold. First, to shore up minds and hearts of those who have reasons to see as problematic the solutions being legislated. Also, to occasion Damascene moments for those who support abortion and euthanasia.
Here are some faith perspectives. There is a third Being who is active in the creation of new human life. The same Power is at hand in every moment of our journey and will be there for us at the end of life. This Power in whom we believe came to live a human life. We need to hold him up as the one who saves and enlightens by the way he lived, suffered, and died and rose again. Our model says to all who labour and are burdened, “Come to me, I will refresh you, for my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” Matthew 11: 28
Such perspectives cry out for further development as the people of God faces up to issues being aired publicly in an often-hostile world. Tell me what you think by sharing your thoughts on these and other questions.
