Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Dorothy Sayers on Euthanasia

Dorothy Sayers was a High Church Anglican whose writings implicate her in the most scandalous thoughts, mores scandalous for our day than when she wrote. She opposed euthanasia for moral reasons, putting these words into the mouth of Vicar Tredgold:

“In those last weeks or hours of pain and unconsciousness, the soul may be undergoing some necessary part of its pilgrimage on earth. It isn’t our business to cut it short. Who are we to take life and death into our hands? ... the wrongness of the thing lies much more in the harm it does the killer than in anything it can do to the person who is killed. Especially, of course, if the killing is to the killer’s own advantage.” (From the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery Unnatural Death)

No comments: