Whatever happened to Thou Shalt Not Kill?

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey voiced his support for euthanasia last week. In a submission to a UK parliamentary inquiry on assisted dying, he called it an ‘act of great generosity, kindness and human love’.

His intervention wasn’t unexpected. Over the past decade, Carey has emerged as one of a small band of religious figures who has dropped the traditional Christian opposition to suicide. He told the Health Select Committee’s inquiry that ‘we must be willing to recognise the limits of palliative care and how much harm is inflicted by the UK’s existing laws [prohibiting assisted suicide]’. He also called on parliament to ‘debate’ the issue.

But proponents of euthanasia do not want debate. They want to engage in emotional blackmail. They want to talk, as Carey did last week, of ‘lonely’ deaths, of people’s ‘immense suffering’, and of ‘grieving relatives charged with murder’ for assisting suicides (which, to my knowledge, has never actually happened). They want to bludgeon listeners into submission with heart-rending tales of human pain.

Carey and Co’s claims, which are typical of the pro-euthanasia movement, don’t stand up to scrutiny. Carey says that legalising assisted suicide will ‘bring compassion to dying’. Yet in both the Netherlands and Canada, where euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal, people still suffer thanks to the poor provision of palliative care. In the Netherlands, research shows that over 40 per cent of patients endure unalleviated pain and restlessness before death. And in Canada, palliative care remains in a dire state, despite the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2016.

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