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Email: "Anglican Bishop: My Mom Wanted to Die, but now is Happy to be Alive"

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BY LifeSiteNews.com By Thaddeus M. BaklinskiLONDON, February 26, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An Anglican bishop has said that though his mother had told him repeatedly in the past that she wanted to die, she is now happy to be alive and he is grateful she didn't kill herself, reports the Christian Institute. Bishop of Durham, Dr. Tom Wright, the fourth most senior prelate in the Church of England, was speaking during a House of Lords debate earlier this month on whether it was necessary to have an independent inquiry into assisted suicide, when he revealed that his mother had told him several times that she “just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up.”Bishop Wright said, “I sympathized with her view – her desire to die – but I shuddered at the thought of speeding her on her way.”The bishop then recounted that his mom eventually recovered fully from her illness and celebrated her 63rd wedding anniversary and recently greeted her sixth great-grandchild. It is unclear what the bishop’s mother’s illness was. The Director of Public Prosecutions in the UK this week issued new guidelines on assisted suicide will allow relatives to help loved ones commit suicide without being prosecuted, as long as they have not gained personally by doing so.Bishop Wright pointed out during the House of Lords debate that had the guidelines been in place during his mom's illness, or if she had lived in Holland or the U.S. state of Oregon, where euthanasia and physician assisted suicide, respectively, are legal, “someone might have ‘compassionately’ given her a paper to sign and the deed would have been done.”The bishop also said that Parliament’s job is not to “bend to every media-manipulated public whim," referring to the mainstream media's bias in favor of euthanasia and assisted suicide, "but to take the larger and longer view.”He concluded that instead of assisted suicide the “genuinely compassionate course includes the remarkable work of palliative care, in which we in this country are field leaders, particularly through the hospice movement.”See related LSN articles:No Need to Change Assisted Suicide Law with New Guidelines: U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10022506.htmlEnglish Catholic Bishops ‘Welcome’ Assisted Suicide Guidelines Condemned by Pro-life Movement http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10022510.html http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/anglican-bishop-my-mom-wanted-to-die-but-now-is-happy-to-be-alive/

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