Church leaders mobilise as Assisted Dying Bill begins Parliamentary process

AHEAD OF today’s debate on Assisted Dying in the House of Commons, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said he is not trying to push ‘‘the religious viewpoint on others”.

The Most Rev Justin Welby joined 20 other faith leaders in signing the letter on the eve of the Private Member’s Motion debate on Rob Marris’s Bill.

Separately, Archbishop Welby wrote to The Guardian, where he warned that the planned Bill seeks to ‘legitimise suicide’.

“This respect for the lives of others goes to the heart of both our criminal and human rights laws and ought not to be abandoned.

“I feel profoundly the grief and struggle of anyone finding themselves in such a situa- tion, desiring to respond with love in the face of suffering,” he wrote.

But he argued that ‘personal compassion’ will be changed for a ‘“process” marked by clinical and judicial detachment.

“As the European Court has noted, the legal understanding of the ‘right to life’ would have to be fundamentally rewritten and for no good effect.”

Archbishop Welby asks ‘what sort of society we might become’, if assisted suicide were made legal.

“Becoming a society where each life is no longer seen as worth protecting, worth honouring, worth fighting for?” he asks.

In his letter he acknowledged that some Christians, including one of his predecessors, took a different view on the subject.

“While some individual religious voices, including that of my distinguished predecessor, Lord Carey, have called for a change in the law, the faith leaders’ letter represents the considered opinion of our communities that have analysed, discussed and debated the issue over many years.”

The letter to MPs this week, signed by faith leaders, opposes legalising assisted suicide from a ‘ pastoral’ viewpoint. It warns of creating circumstances that could affect the vulnerable.

“If passed, it will directly affect not only those who are terminally ill and who wish to end their lives, but also their families and friends and the health professionals who care for them,” the letter states.

The letter was signed by over 20 signatories including Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Head Imam of Leicester Central Mosque, and the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.