Commons' Defeat Of Motion For Doctor Assisted Suicide Reinforces View That Life Will Always Be Worth It's Weight In Gold.

by Benson Agoha | Life and Living

"If you truly believe in the value of life, you care about all of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society." - Joni Eareckson Tada

* A loved one attends to an elderly relative.

The motion on Doctor Assisted Suicide was defeated at the Commons yesterday by 330 to 118 votes. This represented an overwhelming majority of 212 votes. Even a medical doctor had described doctor `assisted suicide' as murder.

It marks the end of a lengthy argument whether people suffering from terminal, or crippling illnesses can be legally helped to exit if they or their loved ones so wish.

In the past four days leading to Friday's Commons debate, a giant had arrived the Woolwich Town Centre, sponsored by The Economist, (which made the issue their Friday's cover topic) in the hope that they win public support in case the law makers voted in favour of the motion.

The giant screen had consistently showed the interior of a hospital ward, with little movement other than the ceiling on which two, silently flickering light boxes were fixed. Occasionally, the partition in the room would shake and a little while later, two messages appeared - one naming the condition and the other asking for the support of the public.

The motion was too sensitive to have been allowed to sail through to law. Even while the debate was raging in the commons, protesters carrying banners and posters were outside calling for its defeat.

Many do not even want to imagine it - that their loves one will be `murdered' through an official regulation enacted by the same authority that outlaws issues such as female genital mutilation.

And many people with strong Christian values believe that where Doctors fail, God's work often begins from that point. Stories and testimonies of strange encounters with the Holy Spirit, resulting in its miraculous transformation of the sick and in-firmed are not in lack.

It's defeat at the commons on Friday has many implications:

* it re-reinforces the unquestionable appreciation of even the smallest thread of breath in us by humanity.

* it also sends a clear message to Carers, some of who have been know to abuse the less able people placed in their care.

* it shows doctors that the premium placed on life is undiminished.

* even more importantly, it sends a strong and clearer message to the Islamic State, for their brazen and wanton destruction of man's most cherished gift from nature.

Long may we live, and may we all learn to preserve that life because it is worth it's weight in Gold.