Parliament may have passed a Bill by Christmas to make it legal for you to ask your doctor to end your life. This is put forward as an alternative to continuing treatment where the prognosis is terminal. A patient may face continuing pain and difficulty in living, a miserable and unpleasant death, or an apparently pointless and burdensome existence. The change in the law will be argued for on compassionate grounds, however it seems that a majority of doctors oppose such a change to the law. The initial proposal will be to allow this course for terminal illness only. Although the law would be promoted as limited to certain cases and with safeguards, the experience in other countries that have made such change to their laws governing suicide and euthanasia shows that the criteria and kinds of affliction to which they apply are rapidly widened, including to cases where the prognosis is not terminal, and the safeguards are eroded or overridden. Indeed, there are MPs lobbying already for the bill to be widened to those who are incurably suffering i.e. not terminal illness. The introduction of assisted dying as an option will result in a diversion of resources away from palliative care.
Are we prepared for such changes? Why does this matter? And what should our response be? Should we actively participate in the discussion taking place? We may be clear about our beliefs on the issue but not see a need to express these. However we know that we are to be salt and light in the world.
There is a very active lobby to promote so-called assisted dying. There are currently four different bids to change the law, in Scotland, Jersey, Isle of Man and now England and Wales. It was called euthanasia, but that has negative connotations, so was termed “assisted suicide”, and now “assisted dying”. I think that this obscures the issues, directing us to think of the hard cases and miss the principle, and also causes confusion, as sometimes people think the term refers to or includes palliative end-of-life care.
As Christians, we should be aware of what is happening and think through what our response might be. Some organisations which oppose “assisted dying” and have further extensive information on their websites include Care Not Killing, Right to Life and SPUC, and links are as follows:
https://www.carenotkilling.org.uk/
One way to make a difference is to contact your MP to find out what their views are and to express your views to them. The MP for Luton North is Sarah Owen, email sarah.owen.mp@parliament.uk , for Luton South and South Bedfordshire Rachel Hopkins, email rachel.hopkins.mp@parliament.uk and for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard Alex Mayer , email alex.mayer.mp@parliament.uk .
I hope to produce further blogs considering this issue, looking at the ethics and possible practical outcomes for society. This recent BBC article highlighting a response from the Church Of England also gives more information. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn9dn42xqg4o
Geoff Simons
Leave a Reply