EFFORTS to lobby MPs on the forthcoming free vote on a Private Member’s Bill to legalise assisted dying have intensified this week. The Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, is a lead signatory to an open letter from faith leaders in opposition.
The others are the RC Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, and the Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, who, like Bishop Mullally, have already expressed deep concerns about the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, from the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.
The Bill, which was published earlier this month and is due to have its Second Reading in the Commons on Friday, seeks to allow life-ending medical help for terminally ill adults who have no more than six months to live, in England and Wales (News, 15 November; Comment, 22 November).
“Part of the role of faith leaders in communities is to provide spiritual and pastoral care for the sick and for the dying,” the faith leaders write. “We hold the hands of loved ones in their final days, we pray with families both before and after death. It is to this vocation that we have been called, and it is from this vocation that we write.
“Our pastoral roles make us deeply concerned about the impact the bill would have on the most vulnerable, opening up the possibility of life-threating abuse and coercion. This is a concern we know is shared by many people, with and without faith.”
Research by the charity Hourglass, referred to in government statistics, estimates that 2.7 million older people (aged 65-plus) in the UK have been subjected to abuse.
“Many of these may also be vulnerable to pressure to end their lives prematurely,” the letter argues. “Disability campaigners and those working with women in abusive relationships have also highlighted the danger of unintended consequences should the law be changed.
“The experience of jurisdictions which have introduced similar legislation, such as Oregon and Canada, demonstrate how tragic these unintended consequences can be. Promised safeguards have not always protected the vulnerable and marginalised.”
There are 25 other signatories to the letter, including representatives of Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh communities. It continues: “Even when surrounded by loving family and friends, people towards the end of their life can still feel like a burden. This is especially the case while adult social care remains underfunded. In this environment, it is easy to see how a ‘right to die’ could all too easily end in feeling you have a duty to die.
“We are convinced that the current law provides much greater security for those who are vulnerable than the bill before Parliament. A bill which MPs will have had only three weeks to scrutinise before they vote on it. The most effective safeguard against life-threatening coercion or abuse is to keep the law as it is.”
The faith leaders were not denying that some people experienced a painful death, their letter says, “though we welcome the fact that these deaths are far less common than they used to be due to advances in palliative care”.
Funding “compassionate” palliative care was the answer, they conclude. “We have seen lives end in love. Much can be lost by cutting these processes short. . .
“While there are many examples of excellent palliative care in this country, it remains worryingly underfunded. Investment in palliative care is the policy of a truly compassionate nation. It is the way to ensure that everyone in society, including the most vulnerable, receives the care they deserve at the end of life.”
On Wednesday, Bishop Mullally was among 1000 Church of England clergy, including 15 diocesan bishops, to sign a letter to The Telegraph outlining these arguments.
“The real answer to these issues is multilayered, but must include greater investment in hospice and palliative care, further medical research into effective pain relief and treatment, and support for the families of those who are dying. These concerns ought to be the urgent concern of our parliamentarians, not legislating to provide an option of death for the suffering.”
A similar letter was published last week signed by 16 faith leaders in Wales, led by the Archbishop of Wales, the Most Revd Andrew John, who is also a signatory of the above letter (News, 22 November).
Writing in The Guardian on Friday, the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is against the Bill, said that the death in 2001 of his 11-day-old daughter Jennifer had convinced him of the value of end-of-life care, over assisted dying.
“By day four, when the extent of her brain haemorrhage had been diagnosed, we were fully aware that all hope was gone and that she had no chance of survival,” he wrote. “We could only sit with her, hold her tiny hand and be there for her as life ebbed away. She died in our arms.
“But those days we spent with her remain among the most precious days of my and Sarah’s lives. The experience of sitting with a fatally ill baby girl did not convince me of the case for assisted dying; it convinced me of the value and imperative of good end-of-life care.”
Writing in The Times at the weekend, Dr Graham Tomlin, a former Bishop of Kensington, said that the slippery slope presented in arguments against assisted dying was “philosophically inevitable”.
“If dignity means autonomy — my ability to choose the place, the time and the manner in which I die — there is no logical reason why we should refuse that right to someone who simply feels a bit depressed or that for whatever reason their life is no longer worth living, however much we may feel their problems are objectively trivial. With this understanding of dignity as unlimited choice, the slippery slope is not just likely, it is philosophically inevitable.”
This story was updated on 27 November to include The Telegraph letter