Overcast again, 25C, humid with occasional rain showers into the afternoon. St Catherine's summer fayre takes place this afternoon. Oh dear, how disappointing! I cooked breakfast pancakes from scratch, as I was up before Clare, tasked with tracking down the vegan recipe in her personal folder of hand written and odd magazine extracts. It's quite well organised, but it still took me a while to find the recipe, which uses plant milk, oil and buckwheat flour blended together into a viscous creamy paste. Should it have been thicker or thinner? I didn't know, but now I've memorised my pancake cooking technique, I produced eight pancakes well cooked slightly thicker than usual, slightly crisp on the outside. Feeling pleased with myself now.
Then we walked down to St Catherine's to deliver cakes Clare had baked, and the barge-ware decorated weighing scale for the bric-a-brac stall. The church lawns are covered with tents to cover an assortment of stalls, all a work in progress at this point. Some may need to be moved into the hall if rain persist, but for the moment everyone waits in hope, and prepares whatever they can. Almost all the fayre workers are of retirement age with a handful of teenage grandchildren pressed into service setting up. The missing middle generations will turn up and spend (hopefully) this afternoon, busy this morning catching up on weekend domestic chores and family affairs. As it's not quite beach weather, younger families may hopefully opt to attend the Fayre rather than head for the seaside. Whoever turns up will be welcomed, that's for sure. A day like this showcases church people as they, are being themselves, open to the local community, just as much as its building and beautifully kept grounds are.
We returned home for lunch and I wrote for a while after we'd eaten, before going back to church to find the fayre in full swing. The grounds were full of people enjoying food, browsing bric-a-brac and toy stalls. There were lots of children with their parents, queuing for the bouncy castle, entertained by a Punch and Judy show and disco for hyperactive kids. Such a hive of activity! After a rain shower at lunchtime the sky cleared, the sun came out, the grass dried and there was nothing to deter people from making the effort to visit the fayre. I stayed for an hour, then went for a walk in the park until supper time.
It's been a momentous few weeks in public and parliamentary debate about social ethics. Decriminalising abortion first, taking the pressure off vulnerable women who for a host of different reasons may find they need to end a pregnancy beyond the current legal limit for doing this, either by miscalculation or perhaps due to an unexpected life changing crisis. There is no criminal intent to merit an often long drawn out criminal investigation into the reasons for the abortion. Nobody benefits from justice applied without compassion. It's a tragedy when any child is conceived unintentionally, in circumstances that undermine its potential for a healthy life, because its birth is seen as a curse, not a blessing. When a potential mother cannot find support to bring a child into the world and raise it themselves, adoption is a real option, bringing a blessing to a childless couple. Fewer women have this option available to them than the number for whom this course is beyond their reach.
Those who are poor and vulnerable are likely to suffer most. Until now treating them as criminal suspects fails to help them get through such a tragedy. The rights of the expectant mother are as important as those of the unborn child. It shouldn't be a case of either/or, but both/and. It's an indictment of social priorities and values that it's become such a conflict of interests. In an era of falling birth rates it seems short sighted to tolerate high abortion numbers rather than offer to those who need it support to bring an unwanted child to birth for adoption. Perhaps this will change for the better one day.
The other legislation change with far reaching consequences concerns euthanasia, help for those suffering in their last months of life to die in order to escape degrading suffering and causing distress to family and friends, by means of a lethal injection. Of necessity it involves members of the medical profession going above and beyond the scope of palliative care. Doctors and nurses are divided in their opinions about this, so is parliament, and the decision has now been taken by relatively small majority to develop workable legislation that permits euthanasia in carefully controlled circumstances.
Switzerland, Spain, Austria, the Benelux countries, New Zealand, Australia, Colombia, Canada and some American States have already legalised euthanasia. Attitudes have changed favourably in Britain as the experience of other countries has become more widely known. The key concern here has been to protect vulnerable people from being coerced into making such a fateful decision. Hopefully one positive outcome would be greater attention and support given to those in need of end of life palliative care. The hospice movement has grown over the past half century in Britain as a voluntary charitable enterprise in partnership with the NHS. Can we do better in reducing suffering right to the end? Can care be improved to the extent that terminally ill people no longer feel the need to curtail their lives?
I've spent the entire evening reflecting and writing on this. I find it hard to imagine myself in either of the situations under debate, as such life changing experiences have not yet confronted me. My heart goes out to all those who have to confront such issues daily.
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