---
title: "Are humanist funerals the new normal?"
date: "2014-02-03T12:39:41+00:00"
modified: "2014-02-03T12:39:41+00:00"
url: "https://rationalists.org.uk/2014/02/03/are-humanist-funerals-the-new-normal/"
post_id: 6135
categories: ["Uncategorised"]
---

# Are humanist funerals the new normal?

Last week Coronation Street – the long-running UK soap – made headlines when one of its major characters chose to commit suicide. Hayley Cropper, who was suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer, took her own life with her husband by her side in a dramatic episode that attracted over 10 million viewers. Her decision to die before the illness would claim her life reignited the nationwide discussion about the right to die. Several commentators [lauded](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10587065/Coronation-Street-leads-to-surge-in-calls-to-Samaritans.html) the “sensitive and responsible” way in which the show portrayed Hayley Cropper’s suicide, while others [questioned](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/19/coronation-street-hayley-cropper-assisted-suicide) if Coronation Street was the best place to discuss issues such as assisted suicide. An anti-euthanasia group even [warned that](http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/jan/17/julie-esmondhalgh-assisted-suicide-coronation-street-hayley-cropper) “promoting suicide” in media might lead to “normalising” suicide and to “a spate of copycat deaths from people in a similar plight.”

Coronation Street has a long dealt with controversial storylines featuring current debates on “big issues”. When Hayley Cropper was introduced in 1998, she [became the first](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/02/humanist-funeral-coronation-street-hayley-cropper) transgender character in UK soap history, and helped to spark the discussion that led to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act. Now her character once again brought attention to “the increasingly paramount value we place on having control over our bodies and our identities,” anthropologist Matthew Engelke [writes in the Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/02/humanist-funeral-coronation-street-hayley-cropper).

While the beloved character’s decision to die was undoubtedly the centre of media and viewer attention, the plot featured another rare soap occurrence: a humanist funeral. Hayley not only chose when to die, but also how her life should be commemorated. Engelke describes the moving ceremony:

> “What wasn’t dramatic was the presence of a humanist celebrant instead of a vicar. Or the fact that Hayley chose the music. Or the colourful array of outfits. There were some thoughts on her floral-patterned, cardboard coffin, but even here it was framed in terms of choice. Choice is an increasingly important part of commemoration, among the religious and non-religious alike.”

So, little attention was paid to the absence of God from the funeral, and no promises of later meetings in afterlife were made. Hayley’s life was remembered as she wanted it, with tears and laughter (and a bit of drama necessary for any TV ceremony). But, what does the low-key treatment of the godless funeral that Hayley chose for herself tell us about the situation of non-religious ceremonies in today’s Britain?

“Humanist funerals are a new normal. And they reflect the same issues of freedom and control over our bodies as debates over assisted dying,” Engelke says.

Read Matthew Engelke’s Guardian article [here](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/02/humanist-funeral-coronation-street-hayley-cropper).