tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/conscientious-objectors-38781/articlesconscientious objectors – The Conversation2024-03-11T13:10:44Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2246802024-03-11T13:10:44Z2024-03-11T13:10:44ZHow alternative communities have evolved – from pacifist communes to a solution to the ageing population<p>People have sought solace and strength in communal living for thousands of years. But unlike traditional villages bound by kinship or geography, “intentional communities” are deliberately constructed by people who choose to share not just space, but also a specific set of values, beliefs or goals. Such forging of a collective path is often in response to times of social change. </p>
<p>Here are three instances where people have turned to intentional communities to seek sanctuary, purpose and alternative ways of living. </p>
<h2>Second world war</h2>
<p>As the war raged across Europe, one particular group of people was looking for alternative solutions. Conscientious objectors were people who refused to fight for moral or religious reasons. </p>
<p>It is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwy002">estimated</a> that there were around 60,000 male conscientious objectors in Britain. Some took up non-combatant roles, such as medics, but others sought out less conventional opportunities. With farming identified as an exempt occupation, some conscientious objectors joined pacifist “back to the land” communities. </p>
<p>One such community was <a href="https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/no-matter-how-many-skies-have-fallen-by-ken-worpole/">Frating Hall Farm</a> in Essex. It provided a safe haven for those who did not wish to fight in the war. As well as farming, the community lived, ate and worked together. </p>
<p>Another such community was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/dec/05/conscientious-objectors-lincolnshire-collow-abbey-farm-play-remembrance">Collow Abbey Farm</a> in Lincolnshire. This was a farming cooperative set up by a different set of conscientious objectors. Again, the principles of pacifism, farming and community brought individuals and families together in a time of need. </p>
<p>Many of these communities dissipated after the war ended, having served their purpose as safe havens for pacifists. </p>
<h2>1960s</h2>
<p>Still in the shadow of the second world war, the 1960s blossomed into a more permissive era which allowed for a freer sense of self and expression. This decade heralded a sense of social change with movements such as civil rights and women’s rights emerging. As the decade progressed, so did the different types of intentional communities. </p>
<p>The 1960s commune movement has been described by some experts as a <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203615171-18/sixties-era-communes-timothy-miller">hotbed</a> of free love, drug taking and loose morals. But others <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780203790656-7/collective-profile-communes-intentional-communities-yaacov-oved">argue</a> they embodied something much more important and were representative of the social changes under way at the time. </p>
<p>In an attempt to escape “straight” society, many young people sought out spaces that allowed them to experiment with alternative forms of living and identity. These were communities that often embraced the non-nuclear family alongside other “counter cultural” ideas such as veganism and non-gendered childrearing. </p>
<p>One well documented example of this is <a href="https://www.braziers.org.uk/buildings-and-land/main-house/">Braziers Park</a> in Oxfordshire. It was a community that formed in the 1950s but flourished in the 1960s and 70s. Braziers was initially set up as an educational community. </p>
<p>Its alternative nature attracted the likes of Rolling Stones frontman, Mick Jagger, and his then girlfriend <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Faithfull/wLGpJ_8I6WYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">Marianne Faithfull</a>, who had lived there during her early life.
She described it as “otherworldly” in her memoir. Braziers still exists today and now offers courses, workshops and retreats.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/four-reasons-to-consider-co-housing-and-housing-cooperatives-for-alternative-living-99097">Four reasons to consider co-housing and housing cooperatives for alternative living</a>
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<p>Another example was <a href="https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-a-beautiful-way-to-live-1971-online">Crow Hall</a> in Norfolk, which was founded in 1965. Although they denied they were a commune, it had all of the marks of being one, with elements such as shared accommodation and collective child rearing. The community operated an open door policy, inviting others to “come find themselves”. It eventually dispersed in 1997. </p>
<p>Like Braziers, some communities set up during the 1960s are still in place today such as <a href="https://www.postliphall.org.uk/">Postlip Hall</a> near Cheltenham, or the <a href="http://www.ashram.org.uk/">Ashram Community</a> near Sheffield. But many others ended as society moved on. Experts who have <a href="https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/911v7/nineteen-sixties-radicalism-and-its-critics-radical-utopians-liberal-realists-and-postmodern-sceptics">reflected</a> on this period describe it as both a time of freedom and, for others, mistakenly liberal.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">New Ground Cohousing in High Barnet, north London.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Today</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/#">communities scene</a> continues to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/17/is-the-boom-in-communal-living-really-the-good-life">flourish</a> but this time under new challenges such as an ageing population and climate change. It’s difficult to estimate how many such communities exist in the UK, as nobody keeps official figures. </p>
<p>Arguably, some of the same generation who were “tuning in and dropping out” in the 1960s are now seeking equally alternative solutions for their older age. For some, this is to be found in the phenomenon of <a href="https://cohousing.org.uk/news/how-the-rise-of-cohousing-is-enriching-seniors-lives/">“senior cohousing”</a>. These are intentional communities run by their residents where each household is a self-contained home alongside shared community space and facilities. </p>
<p>One example of senior cohousing is <a href="https://newgroundcohousing.uk">New Ground</a> in north London. This is a community of older women, founded in 1998, who took their housing situation into their own hands. Defying some of the more traditional models of housing for older people, such as sheltered accommodation, New Ground is an intentional community for women over 50. They live by the ethos of “looking out for, rather than looking after each other”.</p>
<p>For others, the solution involves joining an intergenerational community such as <a href="https://www.oldhall.org.uk/old-hall-community/">Old Hall</a> in Suffolk where octogenarians live alongside children and adults under one roof. This is a community of around 50 people who farm the land, share their meals and manage the manor house in which they live.</p>
<p>As society evolves, so too do the forms that intentional communities take.
While the specific challenges may change, the human desire for connection and a sense of belonging remains constant.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kirsten Stevens-Wood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From conscientious objectors to hippies and seniors, intentional communities offer refuge and purpose for people seeking a different way of life.Kirsten Stevens-Wood, Senior Lecturer, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2091782023-08-01T15:42:11Z2023-08-01T15:42:11ZConscientious objectors in the second world war: little-known stories of pacifists plagued by doubt but willing to risk their lives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539242/original/file-20230725-27-5j4g2s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=141%2C0%2C3360%2C2179&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Second world war conscientious objectors attend a course in mechanised agriculture in Essex.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Britain%27s_Home_Front_1939_-_1945-_Conscientious_Objectors_HU36259.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Like many conscientious objectors during the second world war, John Corsellis was acutely aware of the complex and conflicted position he was taking. Years later, he <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80010236">told</a> the Imperial War Museum’s <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/sound">oral history project</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was always pretty strongly conscious of the illogicality of the pacifist position … I was well aware of the very great and extreme evil of Nazism, and conscious that the pacifist had only a very thin answer indeed as to how Nazism could be opposed in any other way than by force of arms.</p>
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<p>Corsellis, the son of a barrister and educated at Westminster School in London, was far from alone in this inner-conflict. According to <a href="https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/our-staff/r/linsey-robb/">my research</a> into these <a href="https://researchportal.northumbria.ac.uk/en/publications/the-conchie-corps-conflict-compromise-and-conscientious-objection">conscientious objectors</a> – who remain far less well understood than their first world war counterparts – many were plagued with feelings of doubt, finding it difficult even years later to express their reasoning.</p>
<p>Corsellis was one of some 60,000 British men and <a href="https://academic.oup.com/tcbh/article-abstract/18/4/409/1679606">900 women</a> who attested a conscientious objection during the second world war. (Many more women would like to have declared themselves conscientious objectors, but had no official way of doing so.) The 1% of conscripted men was proportionally more than the 16,000 who objected in the two years of conscription during the first world war. Most, but not all, objected on religious grounds and were from middle- or upper-class backgrounds. Most, but not all, were still willing to work in some capacity for Britain’s second world war effort.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
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<p>Indeed, this new breed of “conchie” often displayed a strong desire to relieve the suffering of war – and were willing to risk their lives far from home. Having initially worked with the Quaker-affiliated Friends Ambulance Unit at home, Corsellis was sent to the El-Shatt refugee camp in Egypt and later the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in Italy and Austria. There he witnessed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displaced_persons_camps_in_post%E2%80%93World_War_II_Europe">forced repatriation of refugees</a> to eastern European countries including Yugoslavia – where many faced summary execution. (The trauma of these experiences led to Corsellis <a href="https://britishslovenesociety.org/john-corsellis-carer-of-post-war-refugees-14-01-1923-18-11-2018/">spending the rest of his life</a> raising awareness of the fates of Yugoslav displaced persons.)</p>
<p>A colleague on these missions, A. Tegla Davies, later described the motivation of second world war objectors in his history of the Friends Ambulance Unit:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When the war came upon them, the state treated them with surprising leniency. Some members of the unit went to prison, but for the majority the battle of the prisons had been won by the steadfastness of their [objector] fathers in the previous war. Now they felt that pacifism, having been recognised by the state, should show in action what it could do to relieve the suffering and agony which years of war were bound to produce.</p>
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<h2>‘The pacifist is not a freak’</h2>
<p>Where first world war objectors can be characterised by their persistent opposition to the state, objectors in the second world war were generally willing to compromise so as to be useful in a non-combatant way. Despite being pacifists, they could be found in every corner of the war – and their experiences were often not so different from their fighting contemporaries. As Davies wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The normal, healthy young pacifist is not a freak. He feels the same passions and emotions as his fellow men. He does not enjoy being classed as odd or different. When war comes he is in a dilemma. If he joins the army, he violates his deepest convictions. If he refuses, he is in danger of cutting himself off from the community. Some are not unduly worried by that segregation. Others are tortured by it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Feelings of doubt were common among second world war objectors. Faced with a much more tolerant and flexible governmental strategy than the punitive stance of the first world war, ironically this engendered a much less certain course of action in many.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539243/original/file-20230725-30-35440n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Crowded courtroom with two conscientious objectors at the centre," src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539243/original/file-20230725-30-35440n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539243/original/file-20230725-30-35440n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539243/original/file-20230725-30-35440n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539243/original/file-20230725-30-35440n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539243/original/file-20230725-30-35440n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539243/original/file-20230725-30-35440n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539243/original/file-20230725-30-35440n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A second world war tribunal for conscientious objectors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Britain%27s_Home_Front_1939_-_1945-_Conscientious_Objectors_HU62359.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Even before the truth about Nazi atrocities came to light, their war was also a much more obvious battle between good and evil. The author and broadcaster <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Blishen">Edward Blishen</a> was working in Barnet as a young journalist when war was declared. Turning 18 in 1940, he was required to register as a conscientious objector just as France fell to the Nazis – a coincidence of events that tortured him, according to his <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/4516489">war memoirs</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The shock of knowing that France was finished, and the voice within you saying: ‘You can’t … You can’t not be in it now – not now they’ve done this to France.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet despite this “voice of disloyal temptation”, Blishen registered as an objector, later recalling:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was sent to the bottom of the buzzing room, alone, away from all the others; and it felt as though I was separating myself from the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At his June 1940 tribunal, Blishen was granted agricultural work. Unlike in the first world war, these tribunals were headed by a civilian judge and included representation from trade unions. Incarceration was rare, with only 3% of men – compared with one-third in the first world war – given a prison sentence (generally 3-6 months) as a result of refusing to engage with the process of the tribunal altogether.</p>
<p>Complete exemption from military service was also rare. Around three-quarters of those applying for CO status were directed to work of “national importance”. This ranged from agricultural work to service in the army – either in the medical services or the specially formed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Combatant_Corps">Non-Combatant Corps</a>.</p>
<p>Blishen’s doubts persisted throughout the war. He didn’t enlist, but was painfully honest about the “feeling of shame” that haunted him as the fighting finally came to an end:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I wondered, had I been motivated simply by the dread of being killed or maimed? … Wasn’t it true that through five years of universal agony, I had hidden away in despicable refuge? Had I even been a good pacifist? I had shuffled, hummed and hawed – put off all painful decisions. There it was, nearly over, and I was ashamed of myself.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539254/original/file-20230725-20-z335fh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Ambulance driver stands in front of his vehicle" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539254/original/file-20230725-20-z335fh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539254/original/file-20230725-20-z335fh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539254/original/file-20230725-20-z335fh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539254/original/file-20230725-20-z335fh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539254/original/file-20230725-20-z335fh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539254/original/file-20230725-20-z335fh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539254/original/file-20230725-20-z335fh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A Friends Ambulance Unit driver in Wolfsburg, Germany, at the end of the second world war.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Friends_Ambulance_Unit_ambulance_driver,_with_his_vehicle_in_Wolfsburg,_Germany.jpg">Vernon39 via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<h2>‘We needed each other’</h2>
<p>As in the first world war, nearly all who claimed objection at tribunal did so on the grounds of their religion – with many coming from traditionally pacifist churches such as the Quakers.</p>
<p>The Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) in which Corsellis and Davies served was a re-creation of a first world war service that treated both military and civilian casualties. Predominantly funded by the Cadbury family of Quakers famous for its chocolate bars, the unit engendered a sense of solidarity among objectors <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80011838">according to another member</a>, William Brough:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We needed each other. We needed the confirmation of each other. We needed the affirmation of each other.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Within the unit, the legacy of the first world war loomed large. Corsellis, whose father had lost an arm during the infamous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_campaign">Gallipoli campaign</a>, said he grew up strongly conscious of the “great war”, and argued that his entire generation felt the same. Avoiding a repeat of its destruction was, he added, a “major factor” in his pacifism. Fellow FAU member Michael Cadbury (a distant relative of the chocolate-making family) noted that he and his contemporaries were operating “on top of the mountain” that their forefathers “had scaled on our behalf”.</p>
<p>The popularity of great war poets during the objectors’ formative years was another important factor for some, including Blishen:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I looked at things very simply in those days. Pacifism had seemed to be the air we all breathed when we were in the grammar school together … We all read <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Maria_Remarque">Remarque</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Barbusse">Barbusse</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Toller">Toller</a>, and our views had always appeared so beautifully clear. War was black. Any war was black.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539258/original/file-20230725-22-tsnluv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="British soldier looks through a trench periscope at the Western Front." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539258/original/file-20230725-22-tsnluv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539258/original/file-20230725-22-tsnluv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539258/original/file-20230725-22-tsnluv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539258/original/file-20230725-22-tsnluv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539258/original/file-20230725-22-tsnluv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539258/original/file-20230725-22-tsnluv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539258/original/file-20230725-22-tsnluv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many second world war COs were haunted by images of the Western Front trenches.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NLS_Haig_-_Watching_the_Boche_trench_through_a_periscope.jpg">John Warwick Brooke/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>The horrors of the <a href="https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/about-wwi/trench-warfare">western front trenches</a> are persistent motifs in the writings and interviews of many second world war objectors. For example, Mark Holloway described in a collective memoir how:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All through childhood, real and imaginary pictures of the war flickered semi-consciously in front of me like <a href="https://ayearofwar.com/2018/02/23/ww1-war-diary-salonika-very-lights/">Very lights</a>. They were supplemented later by visits to Belgium – where my parents proudly showed me Zeebrugge and described its intricate wartime history – and to the battlefields with their actual soundbites, trenches, barbed wire and charred stumps of tree that people still pay to see 10 years after war ended.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘Ought I to rethink this?’</h2>
<p>Conscientious objectors weren’t all united in their reactions to the onset of the second world war. While many were willing to work alongside and even in the military, others took a very different position.</p>
<p>Tony Parker grew up in Manchester, the son of a cotton merchant who also owned a second-hand bookshop. This shop, where Parker had worked while at school, was a gateway to pacifism for him. The prominent anti-war literature he read there, notably the poems of Siegfried Sassoon – author of <a href="http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/9823">The Dug-Out</a> and <a href="https://allpoetry.com/Suicide-In-The-Trenches">Suicide in The Trenches</a> – made him realise that war was “nonsensical”.</p>
<p>At his initial tribunal in 1941, Parker was granted non-combatant or ambulance service, but he appealed this and was given mining work instead. Unlike the camaraderie engendered by units like the FAU, Parker was not part of any pacifist group and was the only objector sent to his mine, Bradford Colliery in Manchester. Of this time, <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80009024">Parker recalled</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think you did feel very alone – or at least, I did … All the time one was saying: ‘Am I doing right or am I doing wrong. Ought I to rethink this?’</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zI7MbCmjN9w?wmode=transparent&start=4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In the mine, Parker described himself as “like a strange being from another world” due to his markedly middle-class accent and upbringing. But though short-lived, it proved a transformative moment in his life. “I had never thought there was this kind of life that people had,” he recalled, adding that a friendship with another young miner – with whom he swapped poetry and classical records – had “stopped me thinking there was anything special about a middle-class education”.</p>
<p>Parker’s experience in the mine fuelled his socialism and politicised him in a way which would have been unthinkable before the war, as he learned about “working life in terms of not having things”. After suffering a broken arm and ribs while uncoupling two wagons of coal, he returned to work in his father’s bookshop – but the legacy of this time as a miner is clear. Parker spent the rest of his working life as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Parker_(author)">pioneering oral historian</a>, interviewing people “marginalised” by and living on the outskirts of society – including criminals, lighthouse keepers and single mothers.</p>
<h2>‘I had to join the damned’</h2>
<p>Upon the outbreak of the second world war, Patrick Kenneth Mayhew joined the Royal Army Medical Corp (RAMC) of the British Army and was deployed for service in France – where he became embroiled in one of the most infamous events of the war.</p>
<p>Once the German army invaded France on May 10 1940, Mayhew found himself part of the British army’s immediate retreat. His unit set up a field hospital in a hotel in the town of De Panne, on the Belgian-French border about ten miles from Dunkirk. They worked tirelessly on the many wounded until, <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80012321">in Mayhew’s words</a>: “We were becoming the front instead of the back.”</p>
<p>It was decided that an aid party comprising just one officer and four lower-ranked men would stay to help those who could not be evacuated. Despite not feeling “brave or proud”, Mayhew volunteered and spent 24 hours alternating between medical work and collecting identification disks from the dead outside.</p>
<p>Eventually, his aid party was instructed to evacuate. They made their way to the beach at De Panne, boarded a boat, and rowed for nine hours until they reached the shores of Margate. For his service, Mayhew was awarded the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Medal">Military Medal</a> for “bravery on land” – despite his strictly non-combatant status.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539271/original/file-20230725-15-9kvt5z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="War memorial on a beach" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539271/original/file-20230725-15-9kvt5z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539271/original/file-20230725-15-9kvt5z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539271/original/file-20230725-15-9kvt5z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539271/original/file-20230725-15-9kvt5z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539271/original/file-20230725-15-9kvt5z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539271/original/file-20230725-15-9kvt5z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539271/original/file-20230725-15-9kvt5z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Memorial commemorating the evacuation of British and Allied Forces from De Panne, May 1940.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27Evacuatie_monument%27_De_Panne_(7364728388).jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The awarding of war medals to conscientious objectors was a rarity. Other recipients include members of the FAU’s <a href="https://academic.oup.com/shm/advance-article/doi/10.1093/shm/hkad010/7111375">Hadfield Spears ambulance unit</a>, who received France’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croix_de_Guerre">Croix de Guerre</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Doss">Desmond Doss</a>, an American pacifist medic who became <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conscientious_Objector">the first objector</a> to receive the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_of_Honor">Medal of Honor</a> (the US Armed Forces’ highest military decoration) for going “above and beyond the call of duty” during the Battle of Okinawa, Japan, in 1945. Doss, who refused to carry a weapon of any kind, was the subject of the 2016 Hollywood biopic <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hacksaw_ridge">Hacksaw Ridge</a>.</p>
<p>In Mayhew’s case, the award caused quite a stir. His brother Paul thought it hilarious that a pacifist should win a medal for military bravery and the British press agreed, with several newspapers running articles on Mayhew. But these articles also delighted in the fact that he changed his mind – in the summer of 1940, Mayhew joined the combatant services of the army.</p>
<p>While it was tempting to see a straight line between his harrowing experiences in Dunkirk and this change of heart, Mayhew <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80012321">vehemently rejected this</a>, recalling years later:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It wasn’t anything of the sort. I saw nothing which made me change my mind in that way. Nor – and this is where it becomes so inconsistent – did I feel that I’d been wrong in my Christian belief that war is not acceptable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Instead, Mayhew blamed the intensity of the war in the summer of 1940, when invasion of Britain by the Nazis looked certain:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You weren’t taking time to think and read books and make up your mind, and talk to this person and that person, and let the thrill of Dunkirk die off … These were immediate, imperative decisions. I found so much in this country that I wanted to do or that I believed in … And I hated the idea of that going down the drain.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mayhew added that it would have been very easy for him to stay in the RAMC – and that no one would have questioned his pacifism. In his own fascinating description, he was “the right sort of pacifist”: because he was willing to risk his life and help the war effort, his stance was acceptable to the wider public.</p>
<p>But Mayhew’s family was another key driver in his change of heart. The son of Lord Basil Mayhew, his elder siblings were scattered across the world doing “war work”, and he decided he didn’t want to “save his own soul” while his family committed “mortal sins”. Instead, “I had to join the damned.”</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Portrait of a young man in jacket and tie." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539267/original/file-20230725-17-u93mvd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539267/original/file-20230725-17-u93mvd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539267/original/file-20230725-17-u93mvd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539267/original/file-20230725-17-u93mvd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539267/original/file-20230725-17-u93mvd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539267/original/file-20230725-17-u93mvd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539267/original/file-20230725-17-u93mvd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Timothy Corsellis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Timothy_John_Manley_Corsellis.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mayhew was far from the only objector to renounce their status and join the military during the second world war. Another was the poet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Corsellis">Timothy Corsellis</a> – John’s younger brother – a pacifist who joined the RAF but refused to serve with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Bomber_Command">Bomber Command</a> as he did not want to participate in the indiscriminate bombing of civilians. In 1941, during his service with the Fleet Air Arm, his plane stalled during a training flight and he crashed and died near Annan in south-west Scotland.</p>
<h2>‘A turmoil of doubts’</h2>
<p>Summing up the second generation of world war objectors is a difficult task. Where their first world war counterparts have become simplified in popular representations, with their valiant opposition to a war that is almost universally condemned, the COs that followed two decades later appear as more nuanced, conflicted human beings.</p>
<p>They doubted their stances. They worried about their families. They felt torn between their duties to society and their duties to themselves and their beliefs. They keenly knew the horrors of the first world war, but they also felt the threat against their country and the emerging horrors of Nazism. Theirs was a complicated position.</p>
<p>The English poet and folk musician <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Carter">Sydney Carter</a> was born in London to a military father. Although from a working-class background, he received a bursary to Christ’s Hospital private school before going to Oxford to read history at Balliol College. While his pacifism was ostensibly based on his religious beliefs, his decision to object was driven as much by heartbreak as anti-war sentiment. He recalled later in an <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80009009">interview for the Imperial War Museum archive</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Pacifism seemed to offer something like a religion I could live by. It exposed inside, like a light: and suddenly, I felt quite free … It was as inexplicable as my religious experience had been at Christ’s Hospital; I clung to it through the dark years of the war, as [close] to a divine command that I ever had.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539269/original/file-20230725-17-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Plaque on the conscientious objectors' commemorative stone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539269/original/file-20230725-17-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539269/original/file-20230725-17-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539269/original/file-20230725-17-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539269/original/file-20230725-17-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539269/original/file-20230725-17-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539269/original/file-20230725-17-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539269/original/file-20230725-17-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plaque on the conscientious objectors’ commemorative stone in central London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Conscientious_Objectors%27_Memorial_Plaque_-_geograph.org.uk_-_2952280.jpg">David Dixon/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At his tribunal, Carter was granted service with the FAU, although he doubted “right up to the last moment and after it”. He admitted to having “a lot of non-pacifist things inside me”, and said he had joined the ambulance unit because it promised to be “arduous and dangerous”.</p>
<p>He was right. After doing perilous shelter work in Britain at the height of the Blitz, he was later posted to Egypt and Palestine. While serving at Nuseirat, a camp for Greek refugees, he took the decision “to cast myself into the melting pot, join the Army, [then] see what shape I came out – if I ever did”.</p>
<p>Carter informed his camp commander and set off for Cairo to enlist. Before he reached the Egyptian capital, however, he changed his mind again, and decided to “stick with the people I know”. This turmoil of doubts persisted throughout the war and after. In his 1965 memoir The Objectors, he wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Once, I was a conchie. Why? For over 20 years I have been trying to find out. I could name some noble reasons but, even at the time, I am sure that there were tares among the wheat. Had I gone into the Army, no one would have questioned whether my motives were sincere or not. But being a conchie, I had to justify them – not only to the Tribunal, but to myself. I managed to convince the Tribunal. I’m not sure I ever managed to convince myself.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/presents-from-a-princess-the-mission-to-deliver-2-6-million-christmas-gifts-to-soldiers-and-sailors-on-the-1914-frontline-173276?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">The mission to deliver 2.6 million Christmas gifts to soldiers and sailors on the 1914 frontline
</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/revealed-untold-story-of-the-cia-stasi-double-agent-abandoned-after-22-years-of-service-174668?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Revealed: untold story of the CIA/Stasi double agent abandoned after 22 years of service
</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/womens-secret-war-the-inside-story-of-how-the-us-military-sent-female-soldiers-on-covert-combat-missions-to-afghanistan-205669?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Women’s secret war: the inside story of how the US military sent female soldiers on covert combat missions to Afghanistan
</a></em></p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209178/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linsey Robb receives funding from the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council).</span></em></p>This later generation of ‘conchies’ often felt torn between their duties to society and their beliefs amid a much more obvious battle between good and evil.Linsey Robb, Associate Professor, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1833642022-05-30T20:32:34Z2022-05-30T20:32:34ZWhat happens if you want access to voluntary assisted dying but your nursing home won’t let you?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465198/original/file-20220525-24-g1ekn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C1%2C997%2C664&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/birthroom-hospital-equipment-85290190">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Voluntary assisted dying is now lawful in <a href="https://theconversation.com/voluntary-assisted-dying-will-soon-be-legal-in-all-states-heres-whats-just-happened-in-nsw-and-what-it-means-for-you-183355">all Australian states</a>. There is also <a href="https://nationalseniors.com.au/uploads/VAD-Report-correct-month-12.8.21.pdf">widespread community support</a> for it.</p>
<p>Yet some residential institutions, such as hospices and aged-care facilities, are obstructing access despite the law not specifying whether they have the legal right to do so. </p>
<p>As voluntary assisted dying is implemented across the country, institutions blocking access to it will likely become more of an issue. </p>
<p>So addressing this will help everyone – institutions, staff, families and, most importantly, people dying in institutions who wish to have control of their end.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/voluntary-assisted-dying-will-soon-be-legal-in-all-states-heres-whats-just-happened-in-nsw-and-what-it-means-for-you-183355">Voluntary assisted dying will soon be legal in all states. Here's what's just happened in NSW and what it means for you</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The many ways to block access</h2>
<p>While voluntary assisted dying legislation recognises the right of doctors to <a href="https://theconversation.com/was-take-on-assisted-dying-has-many-similarities-with-the-victorian-law-and-some-important-differences-121554">conscientiously object</a> to it, the law is generally silent on the rights of institutions to do so.</p>
<p>While the institution where someone lives has no legislated role in voluntary assisted dying, it can refuse access in various ways, including:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>restricting staff responding to a discussion a resident initiates about voluntary assisted dying</p></li>
<li><p>refusing access to health professionals to facilitate it, and</p></li>
<li><p>requiring people who wish to pursue the option to leave the facility.</p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/planning-for-death-must-happen-long-before-the-last-few-days-of-life-104860">Planning for death must happen long before the last few days of life</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Here’s what happened to ‘Mary’</h2>
<p>Here is a hypothetical example based on cases one of us (Charles Corke) has learned of via his role at Victoria’s <a href="https://www.safercare.vic.gov.au/about/vadrb">Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board</a>. </p>
<p>We have chosen to combine several different cases into one, to respect the confidentiality of the individuals and organisations involved.</p>
<p>“Mary” was a 72-year-old widow who moved into a private aged-care facility when she could no longer manage independently in her own home due to advanced lung disease.</p>
<p>While her intellect remained intact, she accepted she had reached a stage at which she needed significant assistance. She appreciated the help she received. She liked the staff and they liked her.</p>
<p>After a year in the facility, during which time her lung disease got much worse, Mary decided she wanted access to voluntary assisted dying. Her children were supportive, particularly as this desire was consistent with Mary’s longstanding views. </p>
<p>Mary was open about her wish with the nursing home staff she felt were her friends. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465200/original/file-20220525-22-3r79vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sick elderly patient in hospital bed, nurse wearing gloves holding fingertips" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465200/original/file-20220525-22-3r79vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465200/original/file-20220525-22-3r79vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465200/original/file-20220525-22-3r79vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465200/original/file-20220525-22-3r79vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465200/original/file-20220525-22-3r79vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465200/original/file-20220525-22-3r79vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465200/original/file-20220525-22-3r79vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Mary’s condition worsened so she requested voluntary assisted dying.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hospital-ward-senior-female-resting-bed-1985507447">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>The executive management of the nursing home heard of her intentions. This resulted in a visit at which Mary was told, in no uncertain terms, her wish to access voluntary assisted dying would not be allowed. She would be required to move out, unless she agreed to change her mind. </p>
<p>Mary was upset. Her family was furious. She really didn’t want to move, but really wanted to continue with voluntary assisted dying “in her current home” (as she saw it).</p>
<p>Mary decided to continue with her wish. Her family took her to see two doctors registered to provide assessments for voluntary assisted dying, who didn’t work at the facility. Mary was deemed eligible and the permit was granted. Two pharmacists visited Mary at the nursing home, gave her the medication and instructed her how to mix it and take it. </p>
<p>These actions required no active participation from the nursing home or its staff.</p>
<p>Family and friends arranged to visit at the time Mary indicated she planned to take the medication. She died peacefully, on her own terms, as she wished. The family informed the nursing home staff their mother had died. Neither family nor staff mentioned voluntary assisted dying.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-all-hope-for-a-good-death-but-many-aged-care-residents-are-denied-proper-end-of-life-care-156105">We all hope for a 'good death'. But many aged-care residents are denied proper end-of-life care</a>
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<h2>Staff are in a difficult position too</h2>
<p>There is widespread community support for voluntary assisted dying. In a 2021 survey by National Seniors Australia, <a href="https://nationalseniors.com.au/uploads/VAD-Report-correct-month-12.8.21.pdf">more than 85%</a> of seniors agreed it should be available.</p>
<p>So it’s likely there will be staff who are supportive in most institutions. For instance, in a survey of attitudes to voluntary assisted dying in a large public tertiary hospital, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/imj.15285">88% of staff</a> supported it becoming lawful.</p>
<p>So a blanket policy to refuse dying patients access to voluntary assisted dying is likely to place staff in a difficult position. An institution risks creating a toxic workplace culture, in which clandestine communication and fear become entrenched.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/where-can-you-choose-to-end-your-life-56246">Where can you choose to end your life?</a>
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<h2>What could we do better?</h2>
<p><strong>1. Institutions need to be up-front about their policies</strong></p>
<p>Institutions need to be completely open about their policies on voluntary assisted dying and whether they would obstruct any such request in the future. This is so patients and families can factor this into deciding on an institution in the first place.</p>
<p><strong>2. Institutions need to consult their stakeholders</strong></p>
<p>Institutions should consult their stakeholders about their policy with a view to creating a “<a href="https://bmcpalliatcare.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12904-021-00891-3">safe</a>” environment for residents and staff – for those who want access to voluntary assisted dying or who wish to support it, and for those who don’t want it and find it confronting.</p>
<p><strong>3. Laws need to change</strong></p>
<p>Future legislation should define the extent of an institution’s right to obstruct a resident’s right to access voluntary assisted dying. </p>
<p>There should be safeguards in all states (as is already legislated <a href="https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/tp/2021/5721T707.pdf">in Queensland</a>), including the ability for individuals to be referred in sufficient time to another institution, should they wish to access voluntary assisted dying. </p>
<p>Other states should consider whether it is reasonable to permit a resident, who does not wish to move, to be able to stay and proceed with their wish, without direct involvement of the institution. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183364/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>A/Prof Charlie Corke is Deputy Chair of the Victorian Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neera Bhatia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Aged care facilities and hospices can block access to voluntary assisted dying, despite it being legal in your state.Neera Bhatia, Associate Professor in Law, Deakin UniversityCharles Corke, Associate Professor of Medicine, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1589582021-07-26T02:37:47Z2021-07-26T02:37:47ZThe forgotten Australian veterans who opposed National Service and the Vietnam War<p>On July 26 1971, a top secret cabinet meeting <a href="https://www.naa.gov.au/learn/learning-resources/learning-resource-themes/war/vietnam-war/cabinet-decision-withdraw-australian-forces-vietnam-1971">ended</a> what was then Australia’s longest conflict. The public would hear about it for the first time in August, when Prime Minister William McMahon announced the withdrawal of Australian forces from Vietnam.</p>
<p>Eighteen months — and a change of government later — Australia’s Vietnam War was over. Alongside untold Vietnamese, some 521 Australians had died in conflict, including 202 national servicemen.</p>
<p>The end of Australia’s war also saw the wrapping up of a novel and now largely forgotten organisation. The Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia was founded in October 1966 by former servicemen and women who “oppose militarism” and “believe that National Service […] should not involve conscription for foreign wars”. </p>
<p>The final issue of the group’s newsletter, Conscience, in February 1972 paid special tribute to Martin Leslie (Les) Waddington, a World War II veteran and leather goods manufacturer, and the group’s “spiritual leader, and greatest workhorse”. </p>
<p>Fifty years since Australia officially began withdrawing from Vietnam, my <a href="https://www.academia.edu/47365366/The_Ex_Services_Human_Rights_Association_of_Australia_The_Ex_Services_Human_Rights_Association_of_Australia_the_Vietnam_War_and_the_remaking_of_the_Anzac_Tradition">forthcoming article</a> reflects on how Waddington exemplified an undercurrent of anti-war citizen soldiery in Australia. </p>
<h2>Australia’s anti-militarist tradition</h2>
<p>The Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia emerged out of a long Australian tradition of opposition to compulsory national service, perhaps best exemplified in the famous struggle against conscription during the first world war.</p>
<p>Pre-war national service schemes had proven unpopular: 27,000 court cases were filed against non-compliers between 1912 and 1914. </p>
<p>During the war, <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/conscription-referendums">two plebecistes</a> defeated Prime Minister Billy Hughes’ attempts to conscript Australians for overseas service. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-australias-conscientious-objectors-of-ww1-were-remembered-too-106169">It's time Australia's conscientious objectors of WW1 were remembered, too</a>
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<p>This subversive legacy continued. Ex-serviceman and communist Len Fox used a 1936 pamphlet, <a href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/1cl35st/SLV_ROSETTAIE2707834">The Truth About Anzac</a>, to suggest:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[the] heroism of the Conscientious Objector, the Militant Anti-War Fighter, and the Anti-Conscriptionist, [be] give[n] its place besides the heroism of the Anzacs. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the Menzies government’s National Service scheme of 1964 was initially <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8497.2012.01624.x">widely supported</a> as citizen building, the return of “Nashos” in body bags saw the tide of public opinion slowly turn.</p>
<h2>From Sydney to a national movement</h2>
<p>The Returned and Services League was established in 1916, and by the 1960s the “<a href="https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/115080/2/b14246442.pdf">political pressure group</a>” used its authority to support anti-communism, national service and the Vietnam war. </p>
<p>Waddington was still an active member of his local Cronulla RSL sub-branch when he spearheaded the Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia’s founding meeting in 1966. </p>
<p>Attended by both current and former RSL members, and including doctors, academics and “leading lay churchmen”, the Australia reported the 60 attendees were “well-tailored, well-fed and, to all appearances, essentially middle class”.</p>
<p>The Sydney-based group began actively participating in the city’s anti-war movement, including the December 1966 protests against visiting US President Lyndon B Johnson. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sign reads 'wanted: President Johnson for crimes against humanity'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Anti-Vietnam War demonstration outside United States Consulate-General, Sydney, New South Wales, February 1966.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy SEARCH Foundation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Waddington believed the Anzac tradition should venerate war resisters as much as battlefield sacrifice. These beliefs saw him expelled by the RSL’s State Executive in late May 1967 for “conduct subversive to the objects and policy of the League”. </p>
<p>The resulting controversy meant “there must be hardly anyone left in this country who has not now heard of our Association”, Waddington happily reported in Conscience. Membership exploded to over 500, with branches across the country. </p>
<p>Fellow RSL members came forward to defend Waddington. One resigned his membership, writing the league displayed “a hardening, intolerant attitude”, while another accused it of “deprivi[ing] members of the right to […] express political opinions”.</p>
<p>An editorial in the Canberra Times stated if the Vietnam war was “the be-all and end-all” of RSL policies, then “there would be great gaps in the ranks”. </p>
<h2>Anzac and the heroic resister</h2>
<p>Amid the outcry, Waddington was reinstated — but changing the RSL was not the Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia’s main priority. Its primary interest was supporting conscientious objectors. </p>
<p>The number of young Australians who refused to serve in Vietnam, while always small, rose quickly after the widely publicised case of Sydney school teacher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_White_(conscientious_objector)">Bill White</a> in late 1966. The association took on his case, as it did other non-compliers like <a href="https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/a-diverse-state/against-the-odds-the-victory-over-conscription-in-world-war-one/a-legacy-of-peace-activism-in-brunswick-and-coburg/photograph-free-john-zarb/">John Zarb</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man wears a placard reading 'No Aussie troops for Vietnam'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Anti-Vietnam War demonstrators protest outside Central Police Court, Liverpool Street, Sydney, 1965.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy SEARCH Foundation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>What the association had — and the wider anti-war movement lacked — was their status as ex-servicepeople. Members wore service medals conspicuously at demonstrations to undermine the image of protesters as “long haired radicals”. </p>
<p>To refuse service was not an act of cowardice, the association claimed, but rather the highest form of bravery. As Waddington, protesting the ongoing imprisonment of objectors, remarked in a 1971 letter: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Two years in jail is the price for national heroes to pay to avoid murdering on a foreign field.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Waddington and his fellow anti-war veterans were convinced it was as brave to face prison for your beliefs as it was to face death on the battlefield.</p>
<p>This example highlights how, contrary to popular opinion, the ex-service community has always been far from monolithic in its politics. Equally, it shows Anzac is not an uncontestable mantra, but a pliable tradition that could, rhetorically at least, include proud soldiers and brave resisters. </p>
<p>Today, Australia reflects on the withdrawal from Vietnam as we face the aftershocks of another overseas war. Perhaps we should also reflect on those war resisters and their allies who believed, as the Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia put it, “war is a crime against humanity”.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anzac-day-is-also-about-the-right-to-democratic-dissent-and-those-who-fought-for-it-40565">Anzac Day is also about the right to democratic dissent and those who fought for it</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158958/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Piccini does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A short history of the Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia: a group of brave returned servicemen and women who protested the Vietnam War.Jon Piccini, Lecturer, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1410282020-06-30T12:18:46Z2020-06-30T12:18:46ZWhy soldiers can’t claim conscientious objection if ordered to suppress protests<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344577/original/file-20200629-155334-ikfr3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=428%2C96%2C5405%2C3822&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">National Guard members and protesters in Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 20, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/members-of-the-national-guard-stand-in-formation-as-protesters-march-picture-id1221616350?s=2048x2048">Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Trump’s order that National Guard should “<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-barr-governors-dominate-streets-response-unrest/story?id=70994362">dominate</a>” the streets of Washington, D.C., during recent protests troubled at least a few of the men and women compelled to do the dominating.</p>
<p>Most of the <a href="https://www.nationalguard.mil/News/Article/2205357/national-guard-force-surpasses-hurricane-katrina-response/">84,000 Guard members</a> activated in 33 states between May 29 and June 13 <a href="https://www.capradio.org/articles/2020/06/04/six-things-the-role-of-californias-national-guard-in-protests/">escorted ambulances</a> and <a href="https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/what-is-the-national-guards-mission-in-la-mesa/509-8f005e93-0699-4999-9c9b-cbca2d697cfe">protected businesses</a> from being damaged. Those in Washington, however, were instructed to use <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/us/politics/protests-trump-helicopters-national-guard.html">aggressive tactics</a> to clear protesters. </p>
<p>National Guard troops serving in the District <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/officials-challenge-trump-administration-claim-of-what-drove-aggressive-expulsion-of-lafayette-square-protesters/2020/06/14/f2177e1e-acd4-11ea-a9d9-a81c1a491c52_story.html">dispersed a peaceful demonstration in Lafayette Park</a> by buzzing the crowd with a Black Hawk helicopter and marching in lockstep with police who sprayed demonstrators with rubber bullets and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-church-visit-angers-church-officials">tear gas</a>. </p>
<p>One D.C. Guard member later told reporters that, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/as-protests-spread-tensions-escalated-over-trumps-use-of-military-in-response/2020/06/04/d6388640-a683-11ea-8681-7d471bf20207_story.html">We didn’t join the military to kill our fellow citizens</a>.” Another soldier’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/09/national-guard-protests-309932">brother was in Lafayette Park at the time</a>.</p>
<p>Despite feeling conflicted, National Guardsmen who felt the mission in Lafayette Park <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/us/politics/national-guard-protests.html">violated</a> their <a href="https://moralinjuryproject.syr.edu/about-moral-injury/">personal values and moral code</a> could not have refused to follow the president’s order by claiming conscientious objector status. People with religious or moral objections to war may avoid enlisting as conscientious objectors, and those who experience religious or personal transformations after joining the armed forces may be honorably discharged as conscientious objectors if they request. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=19POJyUMKygC&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=%E2%80%9CHowever,+the+dictates+of+a+person%E2%80%99s+conscience,+religion,+or+personal+philosophy+cannot+justify+or+excuse+the+disobedience+of+an+otherwise+lawful+order.%22&source=bl&ots=hTqZ3hrFZ2&sig=ACfU3U11-9lEt2Rz3LBTKGHfK-MmHdG_rg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-yq3G853qAhV5IDQIHbjiAb0Q6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CHowever%2C%20the%20dictates%20of%20a%20person%E2%80%99s%20conscience%2C%20religion%2C%20or%20personal%20philosophy%20cannot%20justify%20or%20excuse%20the%20disobedience%20of%20an%20otherwise%20lawful%20order.%22&f=false">military regulations</a> give members <a href="https://www.cpr.org/2020/06/13/some-national-guardsmen-likely-to-face-discipline-after-refusing-deployment-to-protests/">little ability to disobey</a> lawful orders on the grounds of conscience.</p>
<h2>Conscientious objector status</h2>
<p>As a longtime National Guard <a href="https://centerforlaw.org/dwight-bio">JAG officer</a> and a <a href="https://gould.usc.edu/faculty/?id=73455">military law professor</a>, I have reviewed dozens of conscientious objector applications. These requests to be relieved from duty reveal the intense ethical dilemma that occurs when a superior’s order violates a soldier’s moral or religious code. </p>
<p>For those compelled to fight in violation of deeply held beliefs, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/us/politics/national-guard-protests.html">inner wounds</a> are sharp and immediate. The U.S. military’s conscientious objection status is designed to avoid “unnecessary clashes with the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7655506457544924278&q=gillette+v.+united+states&hl=en&as_sdt=2006&as_vis=1">dictates of conscience</a>.” </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344578/original/file-20200629-155303-9ggc2c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344578/original/file-20200629-155303-9ggc2c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344578/original/file-20200629-155303-9ggc2c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344578/original/file-20200629-155303-9ggc2c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344578/original/file-20200629-155303-9ggc2c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344578/original/file-20200629-155303-9ggc2c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344578/original/file-20200629-155303-9ggc2c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344578/original/file-20200629-155303-9ggc2c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The scene in Washington’s Lafayette Park, June 6, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/demonstrator-holds-signs-in-front-of-members-of-the-national-guard-picture-id1247331056?s=2048x2048">Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the right to conscientiously object is afforded only to service members who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10642158021794943608&q=gillette+v.+united+states&hl=en&as_sdt=2006&as_vis=1">universally oppose</a> bearing arms – that is, pacifists who believe violence is always wrong, no matter the situation. For those already serving, objections to particular wars or to <a href="https://cite.case.law/mj/65/936/">particular orders to enact violence</a> do not meet the standard no matter how <a href="https://centeronconscience.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Army-CO-reg-May-2019.pdf">morally offensive</a> service members may find them. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily. <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.</em>]</p>
<p>The conscientious objector status has historically been reserved to adherents of pacifist religions. In 1701, <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/political-science-and-government/political-science-terms-and-concepts/conscientious-objector">William Penn gave Quakers</a> a group exemption from service in the Pennsylvania militia because their religion makes any kind of killing a sin. <a href="https://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/peace/conscientiousobjection/co%20website/pages/CONewsletterOpenOffice.pdf">Mennonites</a> and other nonviolent religious groups have received similar exemptions from military service over the years. </p>
<p>Pacifists in the Civil War could avoid enlisting by <a href="http://www.abraham-lincoln-history.org/conscription/">paying a fine</a> or providing a substitute to fight on their behalf. </p>
<p>During the <a href="https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3694&context=uclrev">Vietnam draft</a> in the 1960s, Congress excused draftees who “by reason of religious training or belief, are conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form.” The Supreme Court later clarified that one’s conscience can stem from <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/398/333/">secular values</a>, too, if held “with the strength of traditional religious convictions.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344579/original/file-20200629-155349-9l6eqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344579/original/file-20200629-155349-9l6eqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344579/original/file-20200629-155349-9l6eqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344579/original/file-20200629-155349-9l6eqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344579/original/file-20200629-155349-9l6eqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344579/original/file-20200629-155349-9l6eqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344579/original/file-20200629-155349-9l6eqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344579/original/file-20200629-155349-9l6eqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mennonite servicemen at Ft. Riley, Kansas, during World War I. Five refused to wear a military uniform, citing conscientious objection to the war.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/pR38pK">Mennonite Church USA/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>No excuse for disobedience</h2>
<p>The courts have also been clear, however, that <a href="https://cite.case.law/cmr/40/195/">occasional conscientious objection</a> doesn’t count as a reason to disobey orders. </p>
<p>In 2002, a Muslim American soldier Sgt. Abdullah Webster <a href="https://cite.case.law/mj/65/936/">refused</a> to deploy in the second Iraq War, <a href="https://cite.case.law/mj/65/936/">claiming</a> a religious scholar had told him serving in the war was against Islamic law. A military court in Virginia <a href="https://cite.case.law/mj/65/936/">convicted</a> Webster of willfully disobeying a direct order by being AWOL. </p>
<p>Soldiers have no “self-help remedy of disobedience” when faced with a legal <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-soldiers-might-disobey-the-presidents-orders-to-occupy-us-cities-140402">and constitutional order</a> that they find ethically objectionable, the <a href="https://cite.case.law/mj/65/936/">judge explained</a> in her ruling. Giving soldiers the ability to decide which orders to follow based on their consciences would “<a href="https://cite.case.law/mj/65/936/">undermine the readiness</a> of all units to deploy, and thus compromise the Army’s mission and national security,” she wrote.</p>
<p>Quoting the Supreme Court, the judge said that to do so would “permit every citizen to become a <a href="https://billofrightsinstitute.org/educate/educator-resources/lessons-plans/landmark-supreme-court-cases-elessons/reynolds-v-united-states-1878/#:%7E:text=To%20permit%20this%20would%20be,name%20under%20such%20circumstances%E2%80%A6.%E2%80%9D">law unto himself</a>.”</p>
<p>Following orders is in fact the foundational principle on which effective military organizations are based. </p>
<p>“An army is not a deliberate body,” the Supreme Court observed in 1890 in <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/137/147.html">U.S. v. Grimley</a>. “It is the executive arm. Its law is that of obedience.” Without this rule, commanders would be unable to be successful in combat – or in any activity, really – as soldiers could simply refuse to do as they are told. </p>
<h2>Obedience cuts both ways</h2>
<p>The military’s <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/475/503/">rule of obedience</a> applies uniformly regardless of what a soldier’s particular beliefs may be. </p>
<p>Just as the D.C. Guardsmen couldn’t disobey Trump’s order to occupy the capital, soldiers ethically opposed to desegregation, for example, would have been unable to conscientiously object to <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/central-high-school-integration">President Eisenhower’s 1959 order</a> to the National Guard to integrate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas.</p>
<p>This policy ultimately highlights the importance of the president’s own values. As commander in chief, it is the president who tells the military what to do, to whom, and how. If the president’s ethical code <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2020/03/12/white-evangelicals-see-trump-as-fighting-for-their-beliefs-though-many-have-mixed-feelings-about-his-personal-conduct">broadly diverges from that of most Americans</a>, moral offense is more likely to arise among those tasked with obeying his orders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Dwight Stirling is a reserve JAG officer in the California National Guard. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency.</span></em></p>The US military can exempt from service those who are religiously or morally opposed to violence. But conscientious objector status won’t help soldiers who disagree with specific lawful orders.Dwight Stirling, Lecturer in Law, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1220002019-09-26T21:27:59Z2019-09-26T21:27:59ZWhy people choose medically assisted death revealed through conversations with nurses<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293967/original/file-20190925-51421-1h9vzhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C18%2C3013%2C1903&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Without an understanding of the complexities of medically assisted dying, it's difficult for patients and families to make good decisions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since Canada <a href="https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-14/royal-assent">legalized Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD)</a> in 2016, as of Oct. 31, 2018, more than <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/health-system-services/medical-assistance-dying-interim-report-april-2019.html">6,700 Canadians have chosen</a> medications to end their life. </p>
<p>Canadians who meet eligibility requirements can opt to self-administer or have a clinician administer these medications; the vast majority of people choosing MAiD have had their medications delivered by physicians or nurse practitioners. Canada is the first country to permit nurse practitioners to assess for medically assisted dying eligibility and to provide it.</p>
<p>The precise meaning and implications of MAiD — in particular, who can request medical assistance in dying in Canada — is still evolving through court rulings. Québec’s Supreme Court recently struck down the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5888949/quebec-court-medically-assisted-dying-law/">reasonably foreseeable death requirement under the Criminal Code</a> and the end-of-life requirement under Québec’s <a href="http://legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/ShowDoc/cs/S-32.0001">Act Respecting End-of-Life Care</a>. </p>
<p>Without the requirement of a reasonably foreseeable death, it is likely that other <a href="https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/business/articles/15413/landmark-ruling-on-medically-assisted-death-may-set-stage-for-more-challenges">legal challenges will occur to extend assisted dying to other groups such as those whose sole underlying condition is severe mental illness</a>.</p>
<h2>Involvement of nurses</h2>
<p>Our research has explored how the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1527154419845407">nursing profession is regulating the new area of responsibility</a> towards medically assisted dying and how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733019845127">nursing ethics</a> might guide <a href="https://journals.lww.com/advancesinnursingscience/Fulltext/2019/07000/Ethical,_Policy,_and_Practice_Implications_of.7.aspx">policy and practical implications of nurses’ experiences</a>. </p>
<p>Current legislation guards the right of health-care providers to conscientiously object to participation in MAiD. Nurses who do <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/nin.12308">conscientiously object</a> have a professional obligation to inform their employers of that objection, to report requests for MAiD, and to not abandon their clients. They also must ensure that their choices are based on “<a href="https://www.cna-aiic.ca/%7E/media/cna/page-content/pdf-en/code-of-ethics-2017-edition-secure-interactive">informed, reflective choice and are not based on prejudice, fear or convenience</a>.” </p>
<p>The nurses who surround the process of medically assisted dying are an important source of insight into the complex and nuanced <a href="http://pesut-lab.sites.olt.ubc.ca/projects-2/maid/">conversations our society needs to have about what it is like to choose, or be involved with, this new option at the end of life,</a> and to be involved in supporting patients and their families toward death with compassion.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293901/original/file-20190924-51457-1ffq5oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293901/original/file-20190924-51457-1ffq5oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293901/original/file-20190924-51457-1ffq5oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293901/original/file-20190924-51457-1ffq5oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293901/original/file-20190924-51457-1ffq5oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293901/original/file-20190924-51457-1ffq5oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293901/original/file-20190924-51457-1ffq5oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers are following how the nursing profession is regulating nurses’ involvement in medically assisted dying.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Impoverished stereotypes</h2>
<p>Our most recent research involved interviews with 59 nurse practitioners or registered nurses across Canada who accompanied patients and families along the journey of medically assisted dying or who had chosen to conscientiously object. Nurses worked across the spectrum of care in acute, residential and home-care settings. </p>
<p>During our research, and as we followed media stories, we became aware that as with other morally contentious issues, involvement in MAiD has often been discussed in one-dimensional ways: We noted stereotypes of health-care providers and patients who <a href="https://www.calgaryjournal.ca/more/living/4716-i-ll-see-myself-out-medical-assisted-dying.html">heroically conquer suffering, death and the system by taking control</a> of what might otherwise have been a difficult and prolonged dying. We also observed caricatures of <a href="https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/op-ed/lawrie-mcfarlane-do-religious-principles-outweigh-a-peaceful-death-1.23919174">oppositional or religious right-wing persons and institutions</a> who stand in the way of compassion and dignity. </p>
<p>Neither of these perspectives do justice to the complexities of MAiD as it is enacted. Without an understanding of those complexities, it is difficult for patients and families to make good decisions. </p>
<h2>Nurses accounts of MAiD</h2>
<p>Nurses told us that medically assisted dying is about so much more than the act itself. Medically assisted dying is a conversational journey with patients that lasts weeks or even months. </p>
<p>These discussions patients have over time with skilled and compassionate health-care professionals help to determine whether this is what they really want, or whether there are other options that might relieve their suffering. </p>
<p>Conversations between patients and their families are essential to negotiating a common understanding and moving forward together. </p>
<p>Indeed, evidence has suggested that these conversations, when experienced as meaningful by patients, may help to alleviate the suffering that leads to the request for a medically assisted death. This is particularly true if the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5553124/">suffering has arisen from the sense of isolation</a>. </p>
<p>If and when patients decide to proceed with MAiD, then conversations are required to ensure that all of the organizational details (what, where, when, how) are patient-centred choices and that those who are involved know the part they are to play. After the act of medically assisted dying, it is compassionate conversations that support families in navigating an uncharted bereavement process. </p>
<p>So yes, medically assisted dying is about supporting autonomy, but it is also about understanding that autonomy exists within, and is shaped by, our constellation of relationships. We need to be talking more about the essential nature of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4828197/">what it means to have a good death</a>.</p>
<h2>Complex reasons to choose death</h2>
<p>MAiD is often spoken of as the definitive intervention that ensures control over the alleviation of suffering. But, we have learned that MAiD can also be chosen as the antidote to a system that fails in compassion or equitable palliative care access. </p>
<p>It may seem the perfect solution for rural and remote patients who <a href="https://www.cihi.ca/sites/default/files/document/access-palliative-care-2018-en-web.pdf">want a home death but are unable to find sufficient palliative care in their context</a>. </p>
<p>It may seem the best option for patients who do not want to enter what they perceive to be the <a href="https://pjb.mycpanel2.princeton.edu/wp/index.php/2016/08/15/elderhood-a-case-for-abolishing-nursing-homes-in-the-united-states/">dehumanizing environments of</a> <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/als-bc-man-medically-assisted-death-1.5244731">residential care</a>. </p>
<p>We heard a story of one man who had overstayed the time allowed on a palliative care unit. His doctor was a conscientious objector to medically assisted dying so each time health professionals planned to transfer him to residential care, the man asked for a medically assisted death. In doing so his stay in palliative care was assured. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293963/original/file-20190925-51410-1sfcwoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293963/original/file-20190925-51410-1sfcwoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293963/original/file-20190925-51410-1sfcwoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293963/original/file-20190925-51410-1sfcwoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293963/original/file-20190925-51410-1sfcwoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293963/original/file-20190925-51410-1sfcwoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293963/original/file-20190925-51410-1sfcwoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We need to ensure that inequitable access or lack of caregiving networks do not become the default reasons for requesting a medically assisted death.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We heard other stories of patients who were <a href="https://spcare.bmj.com/content/8/2/184">not willing to tax their caregivers any longer</a>, particularly if those caregivers sent cues that they were exhausted. </p>
<p>So, while medically assisted dying does promise control over people’s suffering, it can also be used as a form of resistance to a challenging system or depleted support. </p>
<p>We need to plan ways to ensure that inequitable access or <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-with-a-looming-aging-crisis-who-is-helping-the-caregivers/">lack of caregiving networks</a> do not become the default reasons for requesting a medically assisted death. </p>
<h2>Deeply impactful</h2>
<p>Nurses emphasized how important it is to have preparatory conversations repeatedly. Organizing an assisted death is labour-intensive for all involved; it requires thoughtful and detailed planning within the care system and among families and support networks.</p>
<p>Often the first time that patients and families hear a detailed explanation of the process is when the nurse or the physician first assesses eligibility.
Nurses said it is not uncommon for patients to experience uncertainty, to vacillate in their decision around an assisted death, or to experience fear at the moment of death. </p>
<p>It is tough to talk about your uncertainty when so many have invested time and energy into planning your death. At the time of assisted death, nurses and physicians go to extraordinary lengths to ensure a “good death” by normalizing the process, fulfilling patient wishes and providing exemplary clinical care. </p>
<p>Despite all of this, the death is often deeply impactful because it is so different than the death we have known where people gradually fade away.
Persons receiving medically assisted death are fully there one minute, and gone the next. </p>
<p>Within minutes they go from talking, to unconscious, to a grey pallour that signifies death, and this “greying” affects even seasoned health-care providers. The death can provoke an array of overwhelming emotions in health-care providers and families alike, both positive and negative.</p>
<p>With the changing landscape of medically assisted dying in Canada, the need for reflective conversations becomes ever more urgent. We need to better understand how medically assisted dying changes the nature of death to which we have become accustomed and how those changes impact all those involved.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122000/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barbara Pesut receives funding from Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She is affiliated with NNPBC.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally Thorne participates on research teams funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research and is a member of the Board of Directors for both the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and the Association of Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of British Columbia.
</span></em></p>Nurses who surround the process of medically assisted dying are an important source of insight into the real conversations our society needs to have about what it’s really like.Barbara Pesut, Professor, School of Nursing, University of British ColumbiaSally Thorne, Professor, School of Nursing, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1061692018-11-08T19:36:53Z2018-11-08T19:36:53ZIt’s time Australia’s conscientious objectors of WW1 were remembered, too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244256/original/file-20181107-74754-jj5mbh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An anti-conscription rally in Melbourne, 1916.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Heritage Council of Victoria</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As we commemorate the centenary of the Armistice, it is appropriate that we pay tribute to the thousands of largely forgotten people who formed a significant social and political coalition at the time of the first world war: those who fought against conscription, and against the war, including a significant number of conscientious objectors.</p>
<p>Military registration and training for all Australian men aged 18 to 60 <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-new-conscientious-objection-9780195079555?cc=au&lang=en&">was compulsory from 1911</a>. But there was no provision in Australian law that required men to enlist for active service overseas. Signing up for such service was voluntary, and with the promise of a short war, there was no difficulty for recruitment officers finding their men.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-great-war-wwi-100462">World politics explainer: The Great War (WWI)</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>However, as news of the <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/gallipoli">horrendous losses at Gallipoli</a> from April to December 1915 and the <a href="https://anzaccentenary.vic.gov.au/westernfront/history/">slaughter on the Western Front</a> from mid-1916 filtered back to Australia, enthusiasm for overseas duties began to wane.</p>
<p>Australia was not meeting its recruitment target. Only about <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9812578?q&sort=holdings+desc&_=1541560154467&versionId=12034106">a third of eligible men</a> were volunteering.</p>
<p>Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes determined that the only way to increase enlistment numbers was to impose conscription. He decided to hold a <a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs161.aspx">plebiscite</a> (sometimes referred to as the “conscription referendum”) to carry out what he saw as his obligation to the Empire, and to do so with the consent of the Australian people.</p>
<p>But there were <a href="https://billyhughes.moadoph.gov.au/conscription">many vociferous voices</a> from the trade union movement, the Labor Party and an active women’s coalition campaigning for a “no” vote. Religious adherents, too, found themselves well represented in the “no” campaign, with many Catholics, Quakers, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/subdivisions/christadelphians_1.shtml">Christadelphians</a>, Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses in the forefront of the pacifist movement.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244231/original/file-20181107-74754-12ab43y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244231/original/file-20181107-74754-12ab43y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244231/original/file-20181107-74754-12ab43y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244231/original/file-20181107-74754-12ab43y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244231/original/file-20181107-74754-12ab43y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244231/original/file-20181107-74754-12ab43y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244231/original/file-20181107-74754-12ab43y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Archbishop Daniel Mannix.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Museum of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/the_home_front/stories/daniel_mannix">Archbishop Daniel Mannix</a> was a leader in the Catholic Church in Melbourne. He took a strong stand against conscription, adding that the war was “just an ordinary trade war” driven by trade jealousy. <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/19131099?q&sort=holdings+desc&_=1541560777283&versionId=32066188">Conscription, he maintained</a>, would simply reinforce “class versus class” social injustices.</p>
<p>Remember, too, that the British had, in April 1916, put down with force the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-caused-irelands-easter-rising-57159">Easter Rising in Ireland</a>. Almost 2,000 Irish were sent to internment camps. Most of the leaders of the Rising were executed in May 1916. Mannix was Irish-born.</p>
<p><a href="http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/ww1/2014/07/14/margaret-thorp/">Margaret Thorp</a>, a Quaker, was another strong voice in opposition to the war, and critical of the support for the war by the mainstream churches. A member of the Anti-Military Service League, she later joined others to inaugurate a branch of the Women’s Peace Army in Australia and, later, a branch of the Sisterhood of International Peace that supported the international No-Conscription Fellowship.</p>
<p>On October 28, 1916, Prime Minister Hughes put the conscription ballot to the vote. <a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs161.aspx">It was defeated</a> by a margin of 3%.</p>
<p>The following year, Britain sought a sixth Australian division for active service. Australia had to provide 7,000 men per month to meet this request. But voluntary recruitment continued to lag behind requirements. On December 20, 1917, Hughes put a second conscription ballot to the people. It, too, was defeated, this time by a larger margin (7%). The war continued to the Armistice with volunteers only.</p>
<p>By the end of the war, <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/atwar/first-world-war">over 215,000</a> Australians had been killed, wounded or gassed. Only one out of every three Australian men who were sent abroad arrived home physically unscathed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244248/original/file-20181107-74772-7lri2j.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244248/original/file-20181107-74772-7lri2j.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244248/original/file-20181107-74772-7lri2j.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244248/original/file-20181107-74772-7lri2j.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244248/original/file-20181107-74772-7lri2j.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244248/original/file-20181107-74772-7lri2j.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244248/original/file-20181107-74772-7lri2j.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An anti-conscription poster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Parliament of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the 20th century, Australian law developed a variety of positions on conscientious objection. Such status today relies on an applicant meeting the requirements of the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2004C03463">Defence Act 1903</a> as amended in 1939. Conscientious objectors need not have deeply held religious beliefs. But they must be able to ground their objection in moral beliefs, and be able to articulate them.</p>
<p>People who were not able to be officially recognised as conscientious objectors in Australia during the first world war were prosecuted when they failed to register. While historical records are impossible to collate accurately on this subject, some 27,749 prosecutions <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1490892">had been launched across the country</a> by June 30, 1915. Stories of the tragic social consequences for these men, and for conscientious objectors, are legion. Objectors particularly were often maligned as cowards and self-seekers. But the historical records illustrate that theirs was not an easy path. They did not lack courage. In many respects, the choices made by conscientious objectors required a greater determination and certainty of belief than was needed by the men who enlisted voluntarily.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/only-the-conscription-referendums-made-australias-great-war-experience-different-49876">Only the conscription referendums made Australia's Great War experience different</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There is a permanent memorial for conscientious objectors in <a href="http://www.for.org.uk/2018/08/10/co-stone-2/">Tavistock Square</a>, London, and one is planned for Edinburgh, Scotland. There is a tribute at the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City for the pacifists <a href="http://www.hutterites.org/history/world-war-1/">Joseph and Michael Hofer</a>, who died in Leavenworth Prison in 1918 while incarcerated for refusing military service.</p>
<p>It is regrettable that Australia has no public memorial to our forebears who campaigned against compulsory military service, and the war itself, for reasons of conscience and faith. As we commemorate the centenary of the Armistice, there is no better time to remedy that oversight.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106169/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rick Sarre receives funding from the Criminology Research Council. He is affiliated with the Australian Labor Party. </span></em></p>It’s time the Australians who voiced vociferous opposition to war in general and conscription in particular were commemorated as an important part of our history.Rick Sarre, Adjunct Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1064982018-11-07T15:49:29Z2018-11-07T15:49:29ZAnthill 31: World War I remembered – podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244311/original/file-20181107-74787-avhemd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>It was supposed to be the war to end all wars, and the sheer destructiveness of World War I was unprecedented for its time. More than 30 countries were involved, 65m men volunteered or were conscripted to fight and millions of civilians contributed to the war effort. Around 16m people died. And many of those who survived came home from the war psychologically and physically scarred for life. </p>
<p>This year marks the centenary of the end of the conflict and this episode of The Anthill podcast is focused on stories from the Great War, and the way it is being remembered 100 years later. </p>
<p>First, our host Annabel Bligh talks to Sean Lang, senior lecturer in history at Anglia Ruskin University, about how the Armistice came about at 11am on November 11, 1918 – and why it wasn’t actually the end of the fighting. </p>
<p>Next, we travel up to Scotland to hear from Neil McLennan, senior lecturer in education at the University of Aberdeen, about how he <a href="https://theconversation.com/owen-sassoon-and-graves-how-a-golf-club-in-scotland-became-the-crucible-for-the-greatest-war-poetry-80229">came across the letter which proved</a> that three of the great World War I poets – Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sasson and Robert Graves – actually met at a golf club near the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh. McLennan and Paul Ferguson, associate professor of audio engineering at Edinburgh Napier University, also explain the genesis of a special concert they are organising to mark the centenary of the Armistice – involving musicians from all over the world.</p>
<p>And finally we hear what life was like for the men who refused to fight during the conflict. Lois Bibbings, professor of law, gender and history at the University of Bristol, explains how the clause which allowed men to object on the grounds of conscience was introduced when conscription began in Britain in 1916. Aled Eirug, senior lecturer at the school of management at Swansea University, whose grandfather was a conscientious objector in World War I, explains what life was like for some of the men who chose to go to work camps set up by the Home Office. And we hear from Ingrid Sharp, professor of German cultural and gender history at the University of Leeds, on the few men who refused to join the military in Germany, and how <a href="https://theconversation.com/life-was-even-tougher-for-the-german-conscientious-objectors-of-world-war-i-26715">life was even tougher for them</a>.</p>
<p>We’re always keen to hear what our listeners think about The Anthill. So we’ve created a short survey to gather your feedback and help us plan future podcasts at The Conversation. You can <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/NFYDXJK">find the survey here</a>. And you can always email us at podcast@theconversation.com too – we’d love to hear from you. </p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-anthill/id1114423002?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tL3VrL3BvZGNhc3RzL3RoZS1hbnRoaWxsLnJzcw%3D%3D"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-conversation/the-anthill"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="88"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/Technology-Podcasts/The-Anthill-p877873/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="318" height="125"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://radiopublic.com/the-anthill-GOJ1vz"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="268" height="87"></a> <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/265Bnp4BgwaEmFv2QciIOC?si=-WMr1ecDTsO_6avrkxZu8g"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237984/original/file-20180925-149976-1ks72uy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" width="268" height="82"></a> </p>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>Credits:</em></strong></p>
<p><em>Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios to record The Anthill.</em> </p>
<p><em>Picture source: <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/flowers-red-poppies-blossom-on-wild-652631032">Shutterstock, A_Lesik</a></em></p>
<p><em>YouTube: British Army, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDS3TxtGaQ0">The Last Post for Remembrance</a></em> </p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB4cdRgIcB8&t=14s">Channel 4 Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen: Read by Christopher Eccleston</a></em></p>
<p><em>Church bells by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T36p5Z8tWcg">Hereford District</a>.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpKmLcxvxVs&t=31s">The Lads of Quintinshill, 1915</a> by Thoren Ferguson</em></p>
<p><em>Armistice by Thoren Ferguson, courtesy of Neil McLennan and Paul Ferguson.</em></p>
<p><em>Free Music Archive: David Hilowitz, <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/David_Hilowitz/Time_Passing_I/David_Hilowitz_-_Film_Cue_103_-_Time_Passing_I">Time Passing I</a></em> </p>
<p><em>The Anthill theme music is by Alex Grey for Melody Loops</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106498/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A podcast on World War I – from a meeting between the three great war poets, to what happened to conscientious objectors in both Britain and Germany.Annabel Bligh, Business & Economy Editor and Podcast Producer, The Conversation UKGemma Ware, Head of AudioJane Wright, Commissioning Editor, Arts & Culture, The Conversation UKLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/774982017-05-17T13:04:57Z2017-05-17T13:04:57ZSecret justice leaves a corrupt and damaging legacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169766/original/file-20170517-24341-1yaf4up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Balance required.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/burden-proof-moodily-lit-legal-law-335237585?src=mzbAV1bWOl3akSCeHaiVFA-1-3">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the most disturbing trends in the British legal system these days is the growing enthusiasm for secret justice. For example, there was a court case a few years ago that you may not know much about. It involved a suspected terrorism plot on British soil, and a well-known alleged target.</p>
<p>The reason you may not know much about it is that a highly respected judge ruled that the trial should be held in secret. The Appeal Court then <a href="http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2014/1861.html">decided to pull the shutters up</a> a little, but only to allow reporters to report the pleas, part of the opening prosecution statement, the swearing in of the jury, the verdict and the sentence. </p>
<p>There followed an extremely <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31989581">strange arrangement</a> whereby approved “accredited reporters” were allowed to attend, but not report some of the proceedings. Their notebooks had to be surrendered at the end of the day. What they heard, saw and recorded <a href="http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2016/11.html">can still not be publicly disseminated</a>.</p>
<p>Many of the significant processes relating to terrorism in the UK over the last 20 years have been heard in secret, with anonymous applicants processed through the immigration system where <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4166050/Public-banned-knowing-identity-asylum-seekers.html">anonymity is standard</a>. This is a system that allows the appointment of “special advocates” in closed procedures where the evidence of intelligence agency suspicion is never known to the people whose presence in this country can simply be rejected. </p>
<p>And there have been at least two occasions when individuals tried for contempt of court have been jailed in virtual secrecy. <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3918716/Grandmother-jailed-secret-court-refusing-remove-man-care-home-freed-six-weeks-prison.html">The stories only emerged through retrospective investigation</a>. </p>
<p>Add to this an implosion in journalistic resources, and we have <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/top-lawyer-warns-that-decline-of-cour-reporters-means-justice-operates-unseen-and-unheard-by-public/">a crisis in reporting of court hearings</a> even when the doors <em>are</em> open to the public. </p>
<p>I have been campaigning against secret justice since the 1980s. But it was just recently, while researching and writing <a href="http://explore.gold/devils-on-horseback">a new play on conscientious objectors</a>, that I was reminded of the corrupt and pernicious legacy that unjustifiable secret processes leave for society. </p>
<p>In 1916, Britain was the first country to legislate for the <a href="http://www.ppu.org.uk/coproject/coww1a.html">right to individual conscience during national conscription</a>. The “conscience clause” had been drafted by three Quaker MPs to allow exemption. The Liberal Prime Minister H H Asquith faced howls of derision when tabling it on the floor of the House of Commons. </p>
<p>Between May 1916 and Armistice in November 1918, up to 20,000 men refused to take up arms. Many went to prison, were forced to serve in punishment non-combatant units, lost their right to vote, and found employment prospects after the war blighted by the stigma.</p>
<p>A small group had even been condemned to death after refusing orders in France. The sentences were commuted when their fate was leaked to their political supporters. </p>
<p>Devils on Horseback is a play based on a decision by London’s Deptford Borough Council to hold all of their military tribunals into conscientious objector status between 1916 and 1918 in private. It was the only local authority in the country to do so.</p>
<p>The destruction of military tribunal records means that the only record of what happened elsewhere resides in local newspaper reporting. The policy of the then Conservative Mayor in Deptford, William Wayland, means that record is practically a blank page. A remarkable memoir by <a href="http://lewishamfww.wikidot.com/person:albrow-henry-rivett">local postal worker Henry Albrow</a>, left to the Imperial War Museum, indicates he may have provided the only account of what it was like to appear before the secret Deptford Tribunal. </p>
<p>He argued his position on the grounds of socialism and moralism, condemning the Council’s militarist culture as anti-democratic and ungodly. He declared: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Every man is my brother. I believe in the socialist Jesus Christ and I cannot connect myself in any way with war.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Lost voices</h2>
<p>The research into the experience and plight of local people in Deptford depended on local historians such as Ann O’Brien, The Peace Pledge Union, and my resourceful colleagues in the <a href="http://www.gold.ac.uk/media/images-by-section/research-and-enterprise/about/public-engagement/Deptford-Town-Hall-1916.pdf">history department at Goldsmiths</a>. </p>
<p>Goldsmiths’ <a href="https://vimeo.com/goldsmiths/review/216408075/097e0aba49">Acting and Film Making Society</a> has now produced an imaginative representation of what happened in Deptford, based on extremely limited resources because of the secrecy that was allowed to exist. </p>
<p>The British legal system must learn from this affront to our history. Secret justice is intrinsically corrupting and problematic. It is so insidious that I believe judges and parliament must simply find a better way of protecting sensitive information and vulnerable people. </p>
<p>Far too many significant legal battles based on high principle, conscience, religion, and social and political status are taking place behind closed doors. We cannot fight injustices if they happen out of sight. We must not let our modern public record disappear into an empty vortex of secret history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77498/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Crook is chair of the Professional Practice Board of the Chartered Institute of Journalists that has campaigned for open justice in the courts throughout its history.
He is the author of the play 'Devils on Horseback: Conscientious Objectors on Trial' that is being produced as a result of a grant from the Goldsmiths Annual Fund.
All ticket receipts from the production will go to the Jay Merriman-Mukoro student bursary scheme enabling attendance on the MA Radio Programme at Goldsmiths for an individual who would not otherwise be able to go to university.
Professor Tim Crook is also the historian of Goldsmiths College.</span></em></p>History does not look kindly on hearings behind closed doors.Tim Crook, Professor in Media and Communication (Goldsmiths), Visiting Professor of Broadcast Journalism (Birmingham City University), Chair of Professional Standards Board, CIoJ., Goldsmiths, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.