I restate – the last two paragraphs of the sermon sum up the compassionate Christian approach to Assisted Ding Choice.   Ian Wood

From our friends across the Tasman I have this Sermon in strong support of Assisted Dying from Rev Craig Kilgour, when Interim Moderator at St Columba’s Presbyterian Church, Havelock North, New Zealand..

It is quite unique in that a nephew of Craig had an assisted death in Canada.  The last two paragraphs of the sermon sum up the compassionate Christian approach to Assisted Dying Choice: “Let me finish this with what my family members said and repeated often using these words about my nephew’s death: It was compassionate, it was humane, it was right and good. And the family are very proud and humbled with the courage he showed in his battle with cancer. And to me no one has the right to be critical and judgemental of the choice he made.

So for me and my family this is not a philosophical debate, it is not a theological debate, it is not a theoretical debate, it is a reality and it was right and my nephew was fortunate he lived in Canada.”

The sermon is posted here with the kind permission of Rev Craig. In response to my question on what was the reaction of his congregation to the sermon Craig replied: the reaction from the congregation was very positive with many copies requested. Copies went wider into the community. I’ve been asked to speak to a retired group of Doctors at Hastings hospital. 

Ian Wood

Rev Craig Kilgour

Sunday 14 October 2018

Assisted dying

The topic I’ve chosen for the sermon might seem strange for a morning when we celebrate the birth and baptism of Angus, but then I thought when life ends, we celebrate the life lived whatever the length.

I mentioned my dilemma to Granddad David and he said it evens things out!

I want to share with you this morning about what our family has experienced just recently.

I’m going to talk to you about assisted dying, euthanasia, a topic which is difficult to deal with, and it provokes very strong feelings.

The End of life choice Bill is currently with Parliament’s Justice Select Committee. There have been 35 000 submissions – think about terminal illness, a few months to live, sound mind, to allow physician-assisted death.

I with some of the congregation, attended a discussion on the Bill, that our MP Lawrence Yule had called with a panel of experts at our Community Centre a while ago.

The issue has been debated by the General Assembly of our church and they were unanimously opposed against supporting the Bill before Parliament.

After I took the service on 30 September, I went across to Takaka for the memorial service for my nephew who had died in Canada. He was 47 years old. The memorial service was held on Wednesday 3 October in the Pohara Boat Club – a place where he loved racing his yachting.

I did the eulogy and the internment of ashes at the local cemetery.

It was hard taking part in the service but good to spend a week with the family. I got back home last Monday.

So let me give you a background that led up to his death in Canada on 18 September.

My nephew was born in Timaru and when quite young, the family moved to Takaka. He went to Golden Bay High School. He loved sport of all kind – rugby league was his first love and he continued to follow the warriors in Canada. He was into motorsport, dirt bike racing stock cars, yachting. Although he suffered from seasickness, he was a very competent sailor. He was adventurous – rock climbing, skydiving, bungee jumping.

When he left school, he became a share milker, he worked in Western Australia on outback stations as a jackaroo, he tried deep sea fishing in a Sealords boat. He met his wife at a Takaka A & P Show. She was a local vet. In 2006 they left for overseas for London, Zimbabwe and Canada. They got married on Christmas Eve in a chapel at Las Vegas in 2007. Seven years ago they had twin girls and five years ago another daughter.

Five years ago my nephew was diagnosed with an aggressive melanoma on his face. He had surgery which twisted his face, radiations that destroyed hearing in one ear and affected his swallowing and numerous chemotherapy sessions that left him sick. He was given experimental drug treatments. The best treatment he could have in Canada. He was able to have medical cannabis to help him sleep and control the pain.

Early in September my brother and sister in law along with their son and daughter went to Canada to be with the family.

My nephew and his wife gathered the family together to tell them that he would stop any further treatment and that they had decided with the doctors that his life would end on 18 September.

Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that the Right to Die with Dignity was a basic human right. You might remember Lecretia Seales, the 42 year old lawyer dying of a brain tumour, went to the High Court in Wellington. The Court ruled that Parliament needed to change the law.

I was in contact with my brother as to how they were coping. He said it was difficult but because of their son’s condition, the pain and discomfort he was facing and the appalling future he faced, they accepted the decision made.

The day before he died my nephew cleared out his shed and burnt rubbish. The next day in the presence of his wife and 3 young daughters, he died.

While in Takaka, I talked extensively with the family. They all felt that what had taken place was right and that he was at peace.

The challenge I think we all faced, personally I had for many years been in favour of assisted dying. Intellectually I believe it needs to come in our country – even if it is for a relatively small number of people – but when it actually comes close and to your family, emotionally it is much tougher to deal with.

You occasionally hear opponents to the Bill use the slippery slope argument, but this argument has been used for every social advance we have made in society: giving emancipation to people of colour, votes for women – we celebrate 125 years in New Zealand – decriminalizing homosexuality, same sex marriage. We are making society more permissive but more humane.

While I lived in America for nearly six years, I read extensively about the State of Oregon. The law on which our one is modeled on, has been in operation for nearly 20 year. Oregon has a population of 4.1 million. They found that over a ten year period on average 30 each year used the legislation to end their lives – again under strict guidelines. A number of people were able to use the means to end their lives but didn’t use it. They had peace of mind. Whenever it is on a ballot, conservative groups have tried to deny this right – each time it has been overwhelmingly defeated. It was widespread public support.

Just a few reflections:

I recently read Nikki Gemmell’s book ‘After’. She is a top Australian novelist and writes a regular column in The Australian. I jotted down in my note book a few quotes from the book:

– In the fraught world of euthanasia – if the perpetrator’s family cannot by law be involved in the wishes of the person wanting to die, then you are condemning that person to a horrendously bleak and lonely death.

• We are not talking about taking life, we are talking about releasing it.
• Embracing individual choice is the mark of a mature nation.
• As we become more empowered as individuals, we need laws out of compassion for people wanting to die.
• I’m in favour of the freedom to choose.

Dr Philip Nitschke – Exit ‘those who seek to exert control over the dying process are pragmatic and directed – and are not cowards, but courageous.’

Nikki Gemmell’s mother committed suicide without telling anyone. Her mother had suffered chronic pain from a couple of botched operations. The book ‘After’ came out of her and the family coping with her mother’s death. She wrote about her experience in her column and had been flooded with responses.

While on holiday in Rarotonga with friends, one evening we were discussing euthanasia. One of our friends, a local GP, made a couple of comments to me. First he said in the 36 years I was in ministry I had more to do with death and dying than he did as a doctor!

And towards the end of the discussion he said would I be able to help someone to end their life with pills?

I went to bed with that on my mind. Next morning at breakfast I said to him Yes I could if I loved someone, they were suffering and I knew their wishes. Someone in the group said to me; Where is God in this? I said I’m not sure God has anything to do with it, but on later reflection, if God is love – and love is shown, yes God is present.

Ian Harris: “What does love, when focussed unwaveringly on the wellbeing of another require for this person in these circumstances at this time?”

The other reflection I have is that over all my time in ministry I visited many parishioners in Senior Citizen homes/Rest homes. I had known many of their life stories. Most had lived full, rich lives, adventurous lives, they were ready and wanting to die. Numerous ones would say; Craig, I hope I could go to sleep and not wake up. I would often reply they needed to be patient and accept the love given by family and friends – if they had anyone. It wasn’t that they felt a burden on others but rather life itself was a burden. Doing basic things took everything out of them.

In a recent Listener article on Jenny Gibbs, one of New Zealand’s leading philanthropists, had made a submission to the select committee considering the issue of voluntary euthanasia.

I quote: “I wouldn’t dream of stopping you from having your views and doing what you think is right and proper. I know some people think suffering is ennobling and I wouldn’t dream of stopping someone who believed that. By the same token I can’t see why you should stop me from living or dying by my beliefs. It is as simple as that – choice.”

As someone said there will be no more deaths, but less suffering.

Let me finish this with what my family members said and repeated often using these words about my nephew’s death: It was compassionate, it was humane, it was right and good. And the family are very proud and humbled with the courage he showed in his battle with cancer. And to me no one has the right to be critical and judgemental of the choice he made.

So for me and my family this is not a philosophical debate, it is not a theological debate, it is not a theoretical debate, it is a reality and it was right and my nephew was fortunate he lived in Canada.

Photo supplied by Rev Craig Kilgour

4.11.2019

Mr Martyn Iles
Australian Christian Lobby
Eternity House
4 Campion Street
DEAKIN ACT 2600

Dear Mr Iles,
“God uses the challenges and trials of life, in all its phases and seasons, to train us and make us better” and “Euthanasia is our vain attempt to deny and reject God’s plan for suffering”.    [To quote from a poster on your ACL Facebook]

What a horrible, vindictive, abusive, sadistic God you portray!  Statements like yours make it readily understandable why Australians are leaving the church in droves.

Thankfully, my concept of God is of love, empathy and compassion. I was given a brain with which to think, and that thinking motivates me to aim to live a good and moral life, yet would also enable me to rationally choose a medically assisted death should I be faced with dying with intolerable suffering. You, and your associates at ACL, are of course welcome to suffer as much as you wish, as that would be your choice, but how dare you tell others what they must endure!

Let’s take just three case examples using your twisted logic. Thousands more are readily available.
Example 1.
Jason, a victim as a young child of the paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale.  You can read that Jason is certainly undergoing “the challenges and trials of life” and then you try to tell us that in some warped way your God is using these challenges to “train” Jason and make him “better”!!!!

Jason: “In 1976, when I was turning 13, I was attending the Mercy Nuns convent (St Malachy’s) at Edenhope. Father Gerry Ridsdale lived right near the school and he was the school manager. I was an altar boy and he was always asking me to come to his house, saying that he had some jobs for me to do there. My mother used to insist that I should go.

“He used to assault me at his house, in his car and at the church (including at the altar when the church was empty and locked). This went on for two years. He did everything to me that you can imagine. He penetrated me countless times.

“After each molestation, he would grant me Absolution,……”
(Ref: http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/55 )

Example 2.
Flora, had been suffering from Multiple Sclerosis for 40 years, and for the last two years she was, quite rationally, pleading for help to die. Yet you are stating that these years of suffering are to “train” Flora and her loving daughter Tracey. You state Flora’s suffering is “God’s plan” and then cruelly say that Flora’s plea for assistance to die is her “vain attempt” to reject this plan of God.

Flora, pictured here in her last days, dying from Multiple Sclerosis. (Right, before her MS)

Her daughter, Tracey Taylor said: ‘Mum was just left to suffer – it was torture, absolute torture.  We were all around her when she passed but it wasn’t peaceful. These pictures are what people need to see – this is why we are fighting for the right to die. There wasn’t a thing we could do to help free her from her pain. We had morphine and sleeping pills and she begged us to help her end it, but we couldn’t. She was like a prisoner of war who had been in a concentration camp.So why is it OK for a human to suffer? The Government need to see why people want the choice to decide when to die.’  (Ref: https://www.facebook.com/shoutforflora/ )

Example 3.  “RIP Keith”.  It is impossible to understand why you have no EMPATHY for Keith in his time of need!. You are brutally suggesting that Joan is being somehow “trained” to make her a “better” person!!

RIP Keith Died October 26 2013, aged 85 years
Joan says: I’m writing to state my case for the legislation of choice for an assisted death. On Friday 1 November 2013 I buried my husband of 61 years. Early this year he was diagnosed with aggressive Lymphoma which was strangling his Intestine. Sounds horrendous, doesn’t it?

His final 3 days were spent in hospital and on the 3rd night he lapsed into semiconsciousness. He had been having litres of fluid drained from his abdomen at intervals during the treatment process and in the early hours of the 4th day fluid in large quantities continued to rise into his throat as he was gurgling and drowning while he struggled dreadfully to get a breath. All the while he kept raising his hand to his head imploring someone to help him. This inhumane action continued without ceasing for 7 hours!! ! How I wished we lived in a compassionate, loving society that approved an injection that would save him from this hideous state.

A Nurse entered the room towards the end, saying, “I have been crying reading his Advanced Health Directive where he wrote that it was his wish to have some kind person euthanise him.” This document had been signed by him, a Doctor and a Justice of the Peace some years ago but of course that wish is entirely overlooked by Australian Law at the present time. It was just his wish – as it was mine. Towards the end, one and a half litres of blood soaked fluid gushed out of his mouth before he took his final breath.

Those hours will haunt me forever. Why should anyone die that horribly?

When it’s your own family having to endure this cruel, inhumanity and it’s you sitting beside the bed waiting and wishing someone had bitten the bullet for change on this grievous, outmoded law of ours, you feel and know the need of the urgency for change. As a practising Christian couple we viewed the present law as ungodly. We are God’s hands and feet, he has no other, and while we do nothing this horrendous practice will continue. Please, please be strong enough to give the Ending Life with Dignity (No2) Bill 2013 the thumbs up. The majority of Australians would be enormously relieved. South Australia would be
applauded.

Sincerely, Joan S     A Christians supporting Choice for V.E. member

Dear Ian,
As requested I’m forwarding my plea to your S.A. Pollies – all of them. Feel free to send this to your local paper should you feel inclined. Fond wishes and I pray that God’s blessing be upon you and yours. Joan S.

Note by Ian Wood.
Joan prepared this plea in early 2014 to go the South Australian politicians, and has since endorsed it to go to all MPs throughout Australia.  It is included in the book The Damage Done, published by Go Gentle Australia and Andrew Denton.
Joan, a committed Christian, pleads that our politicians support Voluntary Assisted Dying choice.

A sermon from Rev Craig Kilgour, of NZ, whose nephew had an assisted death in Canada, sums up the considered, compassionate Christian approach in support of Voluntary Assisted Dying choice. 

Conclusion of Rev Kigour’s sermon …….
Let me finish this with what my family members said and repeated often using these words about my nephew’s death: It was compassionate, it was humane, it was right and good.
And the family are very proud and humbled with the courage he showed in his battle with cancer. And to me no one has the right to be critical and judgmental of the choice he made.
So for me and my family this is not a philosophical debate, it is not a theological debate, it is not a theoretical debate, it is a reality and it was right, and my nephew was fortunate he lived in Canada.

Mr Iles.  To re-iterate.  Please spare all thinking Australians from the imposition of your bigoted views on us.

Sincerely
Ian Wood

Additional comment from our Patron, Rev Dr Craig de Vos
Many oppose voluntary assisted dying by arguing that it’s playing God. But so is artificially prolonging life. And so is allowing people to suffer a horrific death when there are more humane options. This is not consistent with the compassionate, empathetic God whom I see in Jesus––a Jesus who spent much of his earthly life working to ease and eliminate human suffering. ‘Voluntary Assisted Dying’ is not just consistent with that. It is, in fact, a continuation of the
ministry of Jesus.

It is quite unique in that a nephew of Craig had an assisted death in Canada.  The last two paragraphs of the sermon sum up the compassionate Christian approach to Assisted Dying Choice: Let me finish this with what my family members said and repeated often using these words about my nephew’s death: It was compassionate, it was humane, it was right and good. And the family are very proud and humbled with the courage he showed in his battle with cancer. And to me no one has the right to be critical and judgemental of the choice he made.

So for me and my family this is not a philosophical debate, it is not a theological debate, it is not a theoretical debate, it is a reality and it was right and my nephew was fortunate he lived in Canada.

The sermon is posted here with the kind permission of Rev Craig. In response to my question on what was the reaction of his congregation to the sermon Craig replied: the reaction from the congregation was very positive with many copies requested. Copies went wider into the community. I’ve been asked to speak to a retired group of Doctors at Hastings hospital. 

Ian Wood

Rev Craig Kilgour

Sunday 14 October 2018

Assisted dying

The topic I’ve chosen for the sermon might seem strange for a morning when we celebrate the birth and baptism of Angus, but then I thought when life ends, we celebrate the life lived whatever the length.

I mentioned my dilemma to Granddad David and he said it evens things out!

I want to share with you this morning about what our family has experienced just recently.

I’m going to talk to you about assisted dying, euthanasia, a topic which is difficult to deal with, and it provokes very strong feelings.

The End of life choice Bill is currently with Parliament’s Justice Select Committee. There have been 35 000 submissions – think about terminal illness, a few months to live, sound mind, to allow physician-assisted death.

I with some of the congregation, attended a discussion on the Bill, that our MP Lawrence Yule had called with a panel of experts at our Community Centre a while ago.

The issue has been debated by the General Assembly of our church and they were unanimously opposed against supporting the Bill before Parliament.

After I took the service on 30 September, I went across to Takaka for the memorial service for my nephew who had died in Canada. He was 47 years old. The memorial service was held on Wednesday 3 October in the Pohara Boat Club – a place where he loved racing his yachting.

I did the eulogy and the internment of ashes at the local cemetery.

It was hard taking part in the service but good to spend a week with the family. I got back home last Monday.

So let me give you a background that led up to his death in Canada on 18 September.

My nephew was born in Timaru and when quite young, the family moved to Takaka. He went to Golden Bay High School. He loved sport of all kind – rugby league was his first love and he continued to follow the warriors in Canada. He was into motorsport, dirt bike racing stock cars, yachting. Although he suffered from seasickness, he was a very competent sailor. He was adventurous – rock climbing, skydiving, bungee jumping.

When he left school, he became a share milker, he worked in Western Australia on outback stations as a jackaroo, he tried deep sea fishing in a Sealords boat. He met his wife at a Takaka A & P Show. She was a local vet. In 2006 they left for overseas for London, Zimbabwe and Canada. They got married on Christmas Eve in a chapel at Las Vegas in 2007. Seven years ago they had twin girls and five years ago another daughter.

Five years ago my nephew was diagnosed with an aggressive melanoma on his face. He had surgery which twisted his face, radiations that destroyed hearing in one ear and affected his swallowing and numerous chemotherapy sessions that left him sick. He was given experimental drug treatments. The best treatment he could have in Canada. He was able to have medical cannabis to help him sleep and control the pain.

Early in September my brother and sister in law along with their son and daughter went to Canada to be with the family.

My nephew and his wife gathered the family together to tell them that he would stop any further treatment and that they had decided with the doctors that his life would end on 18 September.

Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that the Right to Die with Dignity was a basic human right. You might remember Lecretia Seales, the 42 year old lawyer dying of a brain tumour, went to the High Court in Wellington. The Court ruled that Parliament needed to change the law.

I was in contact with my brother as to how they were coping. He said it was difficult but because of their son’s condition, the pain and discomfort he was facing and the appalling future he faced, they accepted the decision made.

The day before he died my nephew cleared out his shed and burnt rubbish. The next day in the presence of his wife and 3 young daughters, he died.

While in Takaka, I talked extensively with the family. They all felt that what had taken place was right and that he was at peace.

The challenge I think we all faced, personally I had for many years been in favour of assisted dying. Intellectually I believe it needs to come in our country – even if it is for a relatively small number of people – but when it actually comes close and to your family, emotionally it is much tougher to deal with.

You occasionally hear opponents to the Bill use the slippery slope argument, but this argument has been used for every social advance we have made in society: giving emancipation to people of colour, votes for women – we celebrate 125 years in New Zealand – decriminalizing homosexuality, same sex marriage. We are making society more permissive but more humane.

While I lived in America for nearly six years, I read extensively about the State of Oregon. The law on which our one is modeled on, has been in operation for nearly 20 year. Oregon has a population of 4.1 million. They found that over a ten year period on average 30 each year used the legislation to end their lives – again under strict guidelines. A number of people were able to use the means to end their lives but didn’t use it. They had peace of mind. Whenever it is on a ballot, conservative groups have tried to deny this right – each time it has been overwhelmingly defeated. It was widespread public support.

Just a few reflections:

I recently read Nikki Gemmett’s book ‘After’. She is a top Australian novelist and writes a regular column in The Australian. I jotted down in my note book a few quotes from the book:

– In the fraught world of euthanasia – if the perpetrator’s family cannot by law be involved in the wishes of the person wanting to die, then you are condemning that person to a horrendously bleak and lonely death.

• We are not talking about taking life, we are talking about releasing it.
• Embracing individual choice is the mark of a mature nation.
• As we become more empowered as individuals, we need laws out of compassion for people wanting to die.
• I’m in favour of the freedom to choose.

Dr Philip Nitschke – Exit ‘those who seek to exert control over the dying process are pragmatic and directed – and are not cowards, but courageous.’

Nikki Gemmet’s mother committed suicide without telling anyone. Her mother had suffered chronic pain from a couple of botched operations. The book ‘After’ came out of her and the family coping with her mother’s death. She wrote about her experience in her column and had been flooded with responses.

While on holiday in Rarotonga with friends, one evening we were discussing euthanasia. One of our friends, a local GP, made a couple of comments to me. First he said in the 36 years I was in ministry I had more to do with death and dying than he did as a doctor!

And towards the end of the discussion he said would I be able to help someone to end their life with pills?

I went to bed with that on my mind. Next morning at breakfast I said to him Yes I could if I loved someone, they were suffering and I knew their wishes. Someone in the group said to me; Where is God in this? I said I’m not sure God has anything to do with it, but on later reflection, if God is love – and love is shown, yes God is present.

Ian Harris: “What does love, when focussed unwaveringly on the wellbeing of another require for this person in these circumstances at this time?”

The other reflection I have is that over all my time in ministry I visited many parishioners in Senior Citizen homes/Rest homes. I had known many of their life stories. Most had lived full, rich lives, adventurous lives, they were ready and wanting to die. Numerous ones would say; Craig, I hope I could go to sleep and not wake up. I would often reply they needed to be patient and accept the love given by family and friends – if they had anyone. It wasn’t that they felt a burden on others but rather life itself was a burden. Doing basic things took everything out of them.

In a recent Listener article on Jenny Gibbs, one of New Zealand’s leading philanthropists, had made a submission to the select committee considering the issue of voluntary euthanasia.

I quote: “I wouldn’t dream of stopping you from having your views and doing what you think is right and proper. I know some people think suffering is ennobling and I wouldn’t dream of stopping someone who believed that. By the same token I can’t see why you should stop me from living or dying by my beliefs. It is as simple as that – choice.”

As someone said there will be no more deaths, but less suffering.

Let me finish this with what my family members said and repeated often using these words about my nephew’s death: It was compassionate, it was humane, it was right and good. And the family are very proud and humbled with the courage he showed in his battle with cancer. And to me no one has the right to be critical and judgemental of the choice he made.

So for me and my family this is not a philosophical debate, it is not a theological debate, it is not a theoretical debate, it is a reality and it was right and my nephew was fortunate he lived in Canada.

Photo supplied by Rev Craig Kilgour