Assisted dying, Your Grace, is the opposite of Christianity
by Simon Caldwell, TCW:
CAN someone please help Lord Carey of Clifton? The former Archbishop of Canterbury seems to be struggling to understand what the Christian faith teaches. It was sadly predictable that he has reappeared in the debate on assisted suicide, reiterating a claim he made three years ago in the BMJ that doctor-assisted death should be legalised because there is ‘nothing sacred about suffering, nothing holy about agony’.
Following a meeting with Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, he has written to every MP asking them to support her Private Member’s Bill to legalise assisted suicide when it is put to the vote after the Second Reading debate on November 29. The letter is signed by a small number of other Anglican, Unitarian and liberal Jewish leaders of the same mind. Even Islam is represented.
The purpose is surely to demonstrate division among British religious leaders overwhelmingly opposed to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. Archbishop Justin Welby, Carey’s successor, has described the Bill as dangerous, for example, while the Catholic bishops, led by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, are to a man vehemently opposed to the proposals. Could Lord Carey also be seeking to stir up confusion in the minds of the more religiously illiterate MPs by deliberately creating the illusion that one can be at the same time both devout and wish for a change in the law? It would certainly help Ms Leadbeater’s campaign if that was the case.
In their letter, Lord Carey et al argue that ‘if a terminally-ill person does not wish to live out their last few months in pain, for what purpose should they be forced to do so, and in whose interest is that life being prolonged? It is not a religious kindness to force them to suffer on against their will’.
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