A Pastor’s Perspective
In 1986, during a pastoral visit at Groote Schuur Hospital, Graham Lawrence was pulled aside by two desperate doctors. Just the year before he had been ordained in the Methodist Church and he was unprepared for what unfolded next.
The doctors led him to the bedside of an unconscious man surrounded by his weeping family. The man was being kept alive by a ventilator, with no hope of recovery, yet his family couldn’t bring themselves to switch off the machine.
Moved by compassion, Graham offered to hold hands with a bereft family member and turn off the ventilator together. They reached out, flipped the switch, and watched as the machine hissed to a quiet halt. A minute later, a doctor checked his pulse and nodded.
It was over, but Graham was left reeling.
Participating so directly in a person’s death raised profound questions that stayed with him for years, ultimately inspiring him to pursue his Honours in Theological Ethics. To fund his studies, he worked as a pharmacy delivery driver, a job that brought him face-to-face with more harrowing bedside suffering.
“One day,” Graham recalls, “I delivered pain medication to a woman who was literally writhing on her bed. She looked at the box of morphine in my hands and asked if I could get her ‘anything stronger.’ Distressed, I returned to the pharmacy and passed along her request.”
The pharmacist looked at him sagely: “You know what she is asking for, right? She is asking if you can help her to die, and there is no way we can do that.”
Graham returned to the woman’s home, only to learn she had died in excruciating pain just two hours earlier. That haunting memory challenged him to deeply re-examine his stance on medical assistance in dying.
These days, when I counsel people making life-and-death decisions, I don’t bring religion into the conversation, but I do invite God into the discussion.
As a DignitySA Ambassador, Graham is passionate about fostering open, compassionate conversations within the Christian faith and across all religious communities.
“Those of us providing pastoral care witness deathbed scenes firsthand, often more directly than doctors or lawyers debating the legal aspects of assisted dying,” Graham explains. “We see the human reality. We need to be involved in the conversation, inform ourselves, and step up to provide compassionate guidance to our communities.”
If you also believe in fostering open dialogue and compassionate options for those facing unbearable suffering, consider standing with us. Please sign up as a member of DignitySA and invite others to join you.