Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Albert Einstein
Dr No has always rather liked Einstein’s observation on reality, reminding us as it does that things may not always be quite what they seem. As the material consumerist world grows ever more dominant in our lives, a touch of real reality, as in things may not always be what the seem, becomes ever more crucial to keeping a grip on things, especially those things which may or may not be what they seem. Nowhere is this more important than in the vital questions of our ending: how and when we die.
Deferring to the General Synod, which has decided that the Assisted Dying Bill is a Bill up with which it will not put, a bishop declared, ‘that’s the position to which we’re sticking’ (there have since been calls for a Royal Commission, presumably with the long grass in mind). The clarification was needed after an ex-archbish put the cat among the clerics by coming seriously unstuck. Writing in the Daily Mail – hullo? – Lord Carey has come out very publicly in support of assisted suicide, just before the Bill is to be debated in the Lords. Words like shocking rattled round the media faster than balls rattle at Wimbledon. Spigott, the BBC’s God correspondent, had to pinch and remind himself that Carey really was once Chief Pongo of the CoE. This wasn’t the moon faced oval headed conservative Carey bowling from the pavilion end, it was far more striking, as if he had blown his moral brains out. In the event, it turns out he may have shot himself not in the head but foot. Carey’s outing of his change of heart has electrified the established Church into a frenzy of opposition to assisted suicide.