by Julian Mann, Christian Today
Historian Andrew Roberts let the cat out of the bag in his House of Lords speech in favour of assisted suicide: getting Christianity out of the way and reverting to pagan morality would make suicide socially acceptable.
On September 12, peers began debating Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales after MPs narrowly backed it in the House of Commons in June by 314 votes to 291.
Lord Roberts of Belgravia said during the Bill’s Second Reading debate: “The commandment ‘thou shalt not kill’ can be suspended in exceptional circumstances, such as in wartime, and so it should be in the case of the horrendous pain of an irreversible, slow death. Wanting to avoid such excruciating pain is not selfish but a human right.
“Going back further in history, beyond Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, the theologians who proscribed suicide, the ancient Greeks and Romans recognised that there was nothing ignoble in it if the alternative is far worse.
“It should be up to the individual, along with their doctor and family, protected by robust safeguards and oversight mechanisms, but not up to the state or the Church, to decide whether he or she wants to escape pain and suffering in their final days. The autonomy to die on one’s own terms, not on those imposed by others, should not be denied any longer.”