Charles Moore: ‘Assisted suicide would damage the moral fabric of our society’

Journalist Charles Moore has said that legalising assisted suicide would “change the moral basis of society”.

He laid out his concerns in a debate with Lord Falconer for The Spectator. Lord Falconer recently introduced a Bill in the House of Lords to implement assisted suicide, but withdrew it to give precedence to Kim Leadbeater’s Bill in the Commons.

If the Labour backbencher’s proposals become law, those deemed to be terminally ill would be allowed to receive help to kill themselves. The Bill is due to be debated by MPs later this month.

Dying vs suicide

Moore critiqued the terminology used, saying: “It is a factual misnomer to call it ‘assisted dying’. This is assisted suicide.”

He stated: “There is a massive moral, not legal, prohibition on suicide because there’s an important thing at stake about human life.”

The journalist explained: “There is masses of assisted dying – and so there should be. It’s called palliative care.” He described the deliberate misuse of the term as “wool being pulled over the eyes of the public”.

Morality

He argued that the legislation is not fair on doctors, saying, “the new law is not asking them to make a medical judgment about the best interests of the patient. It’s asking them to sit in judgment on the patient’s choice”.

Moore explained: “Our law, our social relations, and our overall moral judgments depend on the idea that we should not intentionally kill one another or help kill one another.”

He stated that the end result would be exploitation, warning: “if we create a society in which you are in some circumstances encouraged to kill yourself, we change the moral basis of society. Vulnerable people will be more vulnerable”.

Humane society

When accused by Lord Falconer of having an austere and anti-choice viewpoint, Moore countered: “It’s not austere. It’s trying to remember that we live in a culture and we live in a society. What’s at stake here is how the whole of society is constructed in the most humane way possible.”

He explained that we have the capacity to help people who are terminally ill through good palliative care, saying there’s an “inner pessimism” in those in favour of assisted suicide, not those against it.

He said the argument made by MP Kim Leadbeater that without this Bill the choice will be “suffering, suicide or Switzerland” is “insulting to the hospice movement and palliative care” and to “a lot of non-professionals who look after those they love”.

Taboo

Moore also stated that helping people to kill themselves would have a wider cultural impact.

He commented: “We often love criticising taboos, but they are very important things. They restrain us from doing the things we tend to want to do”.

He warned that if this Bill is voted through: “The scales will be pushed the wrong way. It will encourage some bad actors to act worse, and it will put more pressure on the weak and ill to feel that it would be a kinder thing for them to go.

“It has wider consequences. One has to see it as a whole and as a whole it’s a move in the wrong direction.”