Carey: Life is sacred but it’s a sacred duty to help people at the end of life
FORMER Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey has backed our campaign to allow the terminally ill to end their lives with dignity, after being firmly opposed to assisted dying 10 years ago.
Lord Carey said although life was sacred, we also have a “sacred duty” to show mercy to those who are suffering at the end of their lives.
A decade ago, he strongly opposed assisted dying and believed “killing in any form was wrong”.
He spoke passionately against it during a 2005 debate. But he is now supporting calls to allow some people to request medical assistance to die.
Lord Carey 88, told the Daily Express he had “almost a conversion experience” after hearing harrowing stories of people who suffered terribly in their final days and weeks.
He said: “One day I said to myself, ‘What’s the evidence that [assisted dying] is doing any wrong?’
“I started to look at the Bible and Christian theology and thought, ‘There is nothing here that actually is relevant because it’s a modern question’. That started me thinking very closely and wondering if I was on the right track.”
Giving a hypothetical example of a woman in her 70s suffering from excruciating pain due to terminal cancer, he said: “Life is sacred to that person too, but what science should be doing is relieving their suffering.
“That is a sacred duty, to actually help people at the end of their lives.
“Life is a gift, but science, which has created the problem by helping us all to live longer, should be there to help us find ways of closing down suffering, helping people to die peacefully.”
The Daily Express Give Us Our Last Rights crusade calls for assisted dying to be legalised for terminally ill adults who are mentally sound and expected to die within six months.
Over the last two years, dozens of people who have witnessed agonising deaths – or who fear they will experience one – have shared their stories.
Cases that influenced Lord Carey include Tony Nicklinson, who had locked-in syndrome, following a stroke. He lost a High Court case to allow doctors to end his life and died aged 58 after refusing food and water.
Lord Carey’s position is at odds with the Church of England, which remains opposed to assisted dying.
It told the House of Commons’ health and social care committee a law change could lead to a “slippery slope” where access is inevitably widened.
The Church also warned it would be “foolish” to think elderly people would not be pressured into ending their lives prematurely. However, the MPs’ inquiry found countries which introduced assisted dying and based their eligibility criteria on terminal illness had not widened it to
‘People said to Jesus, have mercy on us. The Church is not listening to that cry for mercy’
include cases where people were not incurably ill. Lord Carey accused the Church and current Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby of “using the fear motive”.
He said: “They disagree very profoundly with me, certainly the Archbishop does. But I can cope with that because I do think that they are on the wrong side of history.
“If you go to Oregon, which has been pioneering this in the US, all their fears will be shown to be quite baseless. It hasn’t led to a slippery slope, it has not led to abuse. It has not led to the decline of palliative care. If anything, it has gone the other way.”
Lord Carey, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, said he was a “deeply conservative Christian leader” who took a traditional view on most issues. But he said: “On this, I am quite liberal and believe it’s the right thing.
“It’s terrible for us to expect that really sick people pleading for mercy at the end of their lives are not given that by people who can help them.”
He said the law in the UK had “failed really sick people” and recalled an example of a woman he knew whose close friend begged for help to end her life.
Traumatic
Sitting together on a garage floor, the woman tried to comfort her friend as she took a drug overdose. The woman faced a traumatic police probe before then director of public prosecutions Sir Keir Starmer said there was no case against her. Lord Carey said: “People used to say to Jesus, ‘Have mercy upon us’. The Church, which is supposed to be the arm of Christ in the world today, is not listening to that cry for mercy.
“We are taking a very hard, autocratic, doctrinal stand. I hope the Church will wake up to realise it needs to look at this again with compassion, look at the experience of people.
“We have law-makers who can make the law sufficiently strong to make it difficult for people to break the law.
“What we must do is create strong laws that make it very difficult, if not impossible, for wicked people to get away with harming vulnerable loved ones.”
Assisted dying will be in the political spotlight on Monday when MPs meet for a debate in Westminster Hall.
The event was triggered by a Daily Express petition, backed by presenter Dame Esther Rantzen, 83, who has stage four lung cancer, and Dignity in Dying, which gathered more than 200,000 signatures.
The Church of England said: “We believe that the very best care and support ought to be extended to all who are suffering.
“We have a record of strongly supporting palliative care, and, in particular, the hospice movement.
“This is an agonising choice for those facing it, but we believe that neither they nor very many other vulnerable people would be best served by a change in the current law on assisted suicide.”