A BILL to legalise assisted dying would risk causing “millions of vulnerable people” to feel that they had a “duty” to end their lives, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.
He issued a statement on Wednesday morning, before the First Reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, a Private Member’s Bill tabled by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, which would allow life-ending medical help for terminally ill adults with no more than six months to live in England and Wales (Leader comment and Press, 11 October). The Bill is due to be debated on 29 November and MPs will be given a free vote.
The Archbishop said that, while people on both sides of the debate wished to offer compassion and to enable loved ones to die with dignity, Ms Leadbeater’s Bill “will not achieve those things”.
He continued: “Legalising assisted suicide would disproportionately impact many millions of vulnerable people, who might perceive themselves as a burden on those around them and the health service. My concern is that, once you can ask for assisted suicide, it soon becomes something that you feel that you ought to do. Permission slips into being duty. This does not represent true choice for all, and I worry that no amount of safeguards will ensure everyone’s safety at the most vulnerable point of their lives.”
Speaking to the BBC on Tuesday evening, the Archbishop of Canterbury branded the idea of assisted dying as “dangerous”, warning that it would lead to a “slippery slope”, and leave elderly and gravely ill patients feeling compelled to have their life ended medically.
He said that he had observed a marked degradation of the idea that “everyone, however useful they are, is of equal worth to society,” and was unconcerned about past poll evidence that the Church of England was out of step with public opinion on the issue.
The Guardian reported on Thursday that Ms Leadbeater had written to Archbishop Welby, inviting him to meet to discuss the matter. “We both value life unequivocally and I believe it is entirely possible to share that fundamental position while holding different views on whether the law should change to give dying people more autonomy and choice over how their lives end when that end is already very near,” she wrote.
She disagreed with the Archbishop’s argument about a “slippery slope”. “If my bill is passed, parliament will have drawn a very clear and settled line that should not be crossed. We have ample evidence from overseas that this can be done.”
She also argued that there was a “diversity of thought within the Church of England” about assisted dying. Many Christians to whom she had spoken “feel the law as it stands can compromise a dying person’s ability to come to the end of a full and rich life with the same values with which they have lived, including love and compassion”.
The Guardian reported that Lambeth Palace had said that it was trying to find a mutually convenient date for a meeting.
The Archbishop of York told The Yorkshire Post on Tuesday: “We should not legalise assisted suicide, we should be offering the best possible palliative care services to ensure the highest standards of care and compassion for all terminally ill patients. No amount of safeguards could ensure the safety of the most vulnerable in society should there be a change in the law allowing for assisted suicide.
“There would be serious and fundamental consequences for the whole of society if these proposals are accepted, especially for those who are at the most vulnerable point of their lives and for those who love and care for them.”
The Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, wrote on X/Twitter: “By all means let’s have the debate. Consideration should also be given to proper investment in palliative and social care. And let’s call it what it is: assisted suicide. It’s a slippery slope and an absolute degradation of the value of human life.”
The Bill was also condemned by leaders of the Church in Wales, who said in a statement on Tuesday that the Christian faith had always been rooted “in the reality of pain and mortality”, as well as “the incalculable value of each human person, irrespective of social standing, access to resources, or physical or mental ability. . . In that spirit, shown to us in the person of Jesus, we give our heartfelt support to the extension of the best possible palliative care to all who require it, so that no limits are put on the compassion which we show as individuals and as a society.”
“This is an extremely difficult issue over which different people, including Christians, will have arrived at differing views with the best of intentions,” said the statement from the Archbishop of Wales, the Rt Revd Andrew John, with the Bishops of Bardsey, Llandaff, Monmouth, St Davids, St Asaph, and Swansea & Brecon.
“None the less, the protection of the most vulnerable people in our society from the risks inherent in this measure must be the paramount issue — for that reason, we cannot in good conscience support the proposed legislation.”
The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, also urged MPs to oppose the Bill, warning that it risked pressuring the vulnerable and disabled to end their lives prematurely.
“This proposed change in the law may be a source of relief to some — but it will bring great fear and trepidation to many,” he said in a pastoral letter read out across his archdiocese on Sunday.
“Once assisted suicide is approved by the law, a key protection of human life falls away. Pressure mounts on those who are nearing death, from others or even from themselves, to end their life in order to take away a perceived burden of care from their family, for the avoidance of pain, or for the sake of an inheritance.”
The Cardinal said that assurances of “firm and reliable safeguards” would be offered by the supporters of the Bill, which would be “carefully framed”.
He said, however, that safeguards had failed in “every single country” with a similar law, as conditions “widened and widened, making assisted suicide and medical killing, or euthanasia, more and more available and accepted”.
A committee report on assisted dying was to be debated in the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament, on Thursday of last week. The Roman Catholic Primate of All Ireland, the Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Revd Eamon Martin, called on voters to ask MPs and senators where they stood on “protecting end of life care”, before elections next March.
“For all those who cherish a culture of life across these islands, the introduction of laws to permit assisted suicide is an affront to a safe and protective society — such legislation should be strongly opposed,” he said in a press release this week.
“As a society, we are defined by the extent to which we care for our most vulnerable, including those suffering from disabilities, terminal illness or otherwise nearing the end of life. While this is a Gospel imperative, it is noteworthy that medical and healthcare professionals are also gravely concerned at an evolving political ideology, which would interfere with their calling to ‘do no harm’ and legally erode the right to life at all stages.”
The text of Ms Leadbeater’s Bill had not been made available by midweek on her website, but was said by the campaigning organisation Dignity in Dying to offer a “historic opportunity” for MPs to “listen to the public mood” and to allow “dying people a proper choice over how they die”.
“The ban on assisted dying is forcing terminally ill people to suffer despite the best care, spend their life savings travelling to Switzerland, or take matters into their own hands at home, with relatives often left traumatised,” the group’s chief executive, Sarah Wootton, said in a statement.
“A cross-party inquiry examined this issue for 14 months, and found that assisted-dying laws around the world for terminally ill people are safe and often bring improvements to end-of-life care.”
This was rejected, however, by the Welsh Bishops, who said that there was “abundant evidence” from other countries “that good intentions can swiftly lead to bad and unintended outcomes, and to the devaluing of all human life”.
Cardinal Nichols said that Ms Leadbeater’s Bill raised “crucial questions” about “the care and protection afforded by our society to every human being”. The proposed “radical change” risked “bringing about for all medical professionals a slow change from a duty to care to a duty to kill”.
“I know that, for many people, there is profound fear at the prospect of prolonged suffering and loss of dignity. Yet such suffering can be eased,” said the Cardinal, whose Bishops’ Conference website is providing posters, draft letters, and other resources for opposition to the Bill.
“Part of this debate, then, must be the need and duty to enhance palliative care and hospice provision, so that there can genuinely be, for all of us, the prospect of living our last days in the company of loved ones and caring medical professionals. This is truly dying with dignity.”
Eight European countries — Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland — currently permit assisted suicide, while legislation to facilitate the practice, which is also allowed in 11 of 50 US states, is under consideration in France, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
In June, church representatives welcomed a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that countries had no obligation to allow assisted suicide, but also voiced concern at suggestions that it could be recognised as a human right in future.
A separate Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill, tabled in July by Lord Falconer of Thornton (Labour), a former Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, also awaits its Second Reading in the House of Lords (News, 2 August).
Read more on this story in Paul Vallely’s column here
The Church Times and Modern Church will be hosting a webinar on assisted dying on Thursday 28 November. Find out more here