LEICESTER, United Kingdom – A member of the British Parliament will be submitting a bill to legalize “assisted dying” in the country, a move one bishop says “is gravely immoral and a danger to our society.”
Last week, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater announced she was introducing a private members Bill allowing terminally ill, mentally competent people to end their own life with a doctor’s assistance.
Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer – who has supported assisted suicide – has promised MPs a “free vote” on the issue, meaning they could choose to vote with their conscience rather than along party lines.
English Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth issued a statement this week saying the option of assisted suicide puts intolerable pressure on the sick and the elderly, tempting them to feel they are a burden – and a financial drain – on their family and others.
“The right to die would inevitably become the duty to die – and in time the right to make another die,” he said.
“Over the next weeks, we will no doubt be subjected to a barrage of emotional pressure from the media and from euthanasia campaigners such as Exit International to persuade us to support a change in the law,” the bishop said.
He also claimed legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide would undermine palliative care and the work of care homes.
Palliative care improves the quality of life of patients who have a serious or life-threatening disease, such as cancer, and can be given with or without curative care. Supported by the Church, palliative care is seen as an approach to care that addresses the person as a whole, not just their disease.
Egan says legalizing assisted suicide would spell the end to truly helping those with extreme and life-ending conditions.
“It would spell the end of care homes as we know them, since it would be cheaper and less trouble to kill someone rather than to care for them. Caring for the dying, looking after them, is true ‘dignity in dying’ – not a lethal injection or a Sarco pod,” Egan said, referring to a 3D-printed suicide machine recently used by a British woman in Switzerland.
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“Assisted suicide places an unacceptable and immoral demand on medical staff, doctors and nurses. It would make them accessories in killing. It would also undermine the trust we would normally have in them,” he added.
Egan said legalizing assisted suicide is “like a line in the sand,” and will end up being expanded to include people who are not terminally ill, pointing out the example of what has happened in Canada, around 5 percent of all deaths are now by lethal injection.
However, Leadbeater told Sky News her proposal will have “very strict criteria, safeguards and protections.”
“This is not about ending people’s lives. It’s about shortening their death,” she said.
“I’m really clear. This is about people who are terminally ill. It’s not about people who are mentally unwell, what we need to do is improve the treatment of people with mental health conditions. And indeed, we need to improve the treatment for people who are suffering from long-term chronic conditions. That’s another issue and I’ll fully back those campaigns,” the Labour MP told Sky News.
Dr. Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing – which is opposed to a change in the current law – told Sky News the bill’s introduction was “clearly disappointing news.”
“I would strongly urge the government to focus on fixing our broken palliative care system that sees up to one in four Brits who would benefit from this type of care being unable to access it, rather than discussing again this dangerous and ideological policy,” he said.
In his statement, Egan said suicide is “a grave offence against God, against neighbor and against self.”
“Suicide is not only a grave sin, but if freely, consciously and deliberately chosen as in an assisted suicide, a mortal sin. Willingly assisting someone to kill themselves in this way is also a mortal sin,” the bishop said.
He added it would be impossible for a priest to give someone committing suicide the Last Rites, and asked, “what justification will the person make when they come before the Lord to give an account of their life – and their death?”
Egan said Catholic “must mobilize” as this debate enters Parliament.
“We believe in assisted living, not assisted dying. Investing in palliative care is a better way to support people suffering at the end of life,” he said.
“Don’t be seduced by the emotional pitches in the media we will be bombarded with. Correct them when they use the double-speak of ‘assisted dying’: Call it what it is: ‘assisted suicide.’ Speak out against this sinister proposal. And pray earnestly that our legislators and our society will see common sense. For once this line is crossed, our society will never be the same again,” the bishop said.
Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome
