News and Opinion

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Keir Starmer, has done what he was instructed to do by the House of Lords – he has issued guidance to clarify the circumstances under which the DPP will seek to prosecute anyone who chooses to assist in the suicide of another. While both sides in the debate have criticised the statement it is, in my view, a big step forward toward a law that will legalise assisting in the suicide of a loved one who no longer wishes to live but who is incapable of taking their own life. While not changing the law – it is still illegal to assist – the clarification recognises the change in public mood that makes it unlikely to secure convictions in certain circumstances – and thus a waste of public money to prosecute. It is now only a matter of time before Parliament accepts the inevitable and legislates accordingly, possibly along the lines of the tribunals advocated by Terry Pratchett. The guidance makes it unlikely that someone will be prosecuted if the fol...

The current vogue for apologies for historic ‘wrongs’ is carried another step forward today with the Prime Minister’s apology for the policy of former governments and local authorities, right up to the 1960s, to ship certain babies and children off to Australia. Hitherto I had believed they had committed some sin like allowing themselves to be born out of wedlock or being so careless as to be orphaned, but ‘Bill’, interviewed on Today this morning, seemed to be saying they were just picked randomly. This can’t be so, can it? Someone would have said something, wouldn’t they? Anyway, many of the thousands of kids transported in this way ended up as farm labourers in the Auzzie outback or, even worse, suffering the tender care of religious institutions like the Christian Brothers. Christianity, as we all know, is founded on the principle of an all encompassing love, on compassion and care, on forgiveness of those who trespass against you and of turning the other cheek when struck. O...

Taking part in the 10:23 "Homeopathy: There's nothing in it" campaign on 30th January was an interesting experience. The publicity stunt certainly generated debate and several people I've talked to since had no idea that homeopathy was not a herbal remedy. If the event did nothing more than inform people of that, then it was useful - and I am sure many homeopaths would applaud the spreading of accurate information. After all, they wouldn't want their customers to be misled, would they? However, the vast majority of homeopathy supporters seem happy for these "medicines" to be marketed because, they say, they can work, even if only as a placebo, and they do no direct harm. Homeopathy used by practitioners who believe they are able to treat serious psychological/behavioural problems that require professional intervention or those who think they can prevent or treat malaria, AIDS or other deadly diseases are often overlooked by these proponents - ...

Today's headlines focus on the matter noted in yesterday's post - that the government has watered down its own bill on future personal sex and relationship education by caving in to pressure from the religious schools lobby. The bill does advance the cause of good sex and relationship education by establishing for the first time certain requirements on all state schools to address issues of sex and relationships. However, the requirement to give sex education in a way that encourages the acceptance of sexual diversity and with information about abortion and contraception has now been qualified by an amendment that allows religious (faith) schools to teach such matters in accordance with their own religious ethos. A discussion between John Humphries and Ed Balls, Schools Secretary, on his amendment this morning brought out the problems. For example, a Catholic school (which already separates out and identifies its pupils as different from others, as believers in the 'one ...

Last night’s talk at Secular Hall was an unusual one – all about sexual pleasure. Well, not exactly, but about how one city’s health authority, Sheffield’s, pioneered work on promoting health education about the benefits of sexual pleasure for young people, amongst all the other dire warnings about the dangers of sex. Steve Slack talked about the pamphlet that led to a furore last summer (I must have been out of the country), with headlines in the papers like ‘an orgasm a day on the NHS’, or similar. He was right about one thing, that outside of explicitly pornographic material very few people are comfortable talking about sexual pleasure – despite it being the main reason most of us take part in sex and without which one has to wonder whether there would be a human race at all. Even in the world of humour, where comedians make frequent references to issues around sex, to much laughter, the humour always seems to rely on either straightforward smut or daring allusions to what we all kn...

Last night's final episode in the History of Christianity series on BBC2 was entitled 'God in the Dock' and focussed on scepticism - i.e. doubts about God and the Bible as a historical document. Unfortunately, however, Diarmaid MacCulloch, the narrator, looked no further back in time than Baruch de Spinoza, the notionally Jewish philosopher who wrote in 17th century Amsterdam. Spinoza's scepticism concluded with the notion that Nature itself was God. MacCulloch then reported on the rise of scepticism since that time, incuding the whole Enlightenment and the growth of atheism through the achievements of science and the industrial revolution up to our own time when, under the impact of atheism and rationalism, the Christian church is riven with factions taking different positions on the nature of their god and the status of biblical writings. Like all religions it must be prone to factionalism because its fundamental ideas are built on sand and one interpretation is a...

Frederick J Gould was Secretary and Organiser at Leicester Secular Hall from 1899 until 1908. He was a prolific writer of books, newspaper, magazine and journal articles for children and adults. The following snippet is from his Stepping-Stones to Agnosticism (no date): We do not wantonly doubt. We make no boast of the failure of our vision to penetrate the secrets of infinity. Forced by the imperious necessities of reason to renounce the popular faith, we regret our severance from time-honoured churches and their hallowed associations. We would fain enter and join the assembly. But the price of entrance is one that intellectual honour and moral dignity forbid us to pay.

I just happened to catch that part of the programme last night where Ray Gosling confesses that he suffocated his lover in his hospital bed many years ago because they had an understanding on this matter and the chap was in pain and suffering from terminal AIDS. The doctor either didn't suspect anything or turned a blind eye out of a similar kind of compassion. I was in a similar situation some 15 or 20 years ago when my aged favourite aunt was bedridden in a nursing home, profoundly deaf and blind and suffering from dementia. She called out continuously for her mum (long since dead) and also shouted frequently that she wanted to die. She was a prisoner in her own now useless body and the sensory deprivation had literally driven her mad. I considered seriously the option of suffocation when other visitors were out of the room but did not do it. At the time I was a single parent with two young children to care for and this responsibility stayed my hand - a spell of imprisonmen...

Wasn't it good to see everyone getting active on Valentines this year? I've not known so much fuss made of it before. Radio Leicester and East Mids BBC TV had features and Leicester Secular Society had a love poetry evening hosted by the 'Book Doctor', Alison Dunne, and member Bobba Cass. St Catherine's Church in Burbage had thirty couples renewing their vows 'with the help of God'. Atheists don't have God's support for their loving so they have to muddle through alone, but apparently none the worse for it. My atheist better half and I stayed in for a romantic meal before watching a rather unsettling film, 'The Comfort of Strangers', about a couple who went to Venice to revive their flagging relationship. It looked as though the plan was doomed to failure until they were befriended by a couple with very dark ulterior motives. The experience did bring them closer together, however, but only one return ticket was needed by the end of th...