Justin Welby: ‘Assisted suicide could easily become a duty to die’

The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that legalising assisted suicide “could open the door to yet more pain and suffering for those we are trying to help”.

Writing in The Daily Mail, Justin Welby said “even where there is no abuse, the pressure to end one’s life early could be intense and inescapable if the law were changed”, and “the right to end your life could all too easily – and accidentally – turn into a duty to do so”.

He urged the public to inform their MP of the dangers, ahead of next month’s House of Commons debate on Kim Leadbeater’s Private Member’s Bill. If the Labour MP’s proposals become law, those deemed to be terminally ill would be allowed to receive help to kill themselves.

‘Burden’

The Archbishop reflected that before his mother passed away, she said: “I must be such a burden. Wouldn’t it be better if I just went?” But he replied: “Mum, we love you, every day with you is a gift; you are NOT a burden. And we are thanking you for all you give us.”

Writing now, he said: “I don’t want the people I love – or anyone, for that matter – to be made to feel a burden in their final months on earth. Dying in pain is not inevitable.

“Good palliative care can provide us with the dignity and compassion we are all searching for. My mum’s last days were eased by advice and medication from a hospice. She died peacefully, heavily sedated and deeply loved. That, to me, is dignity in dying.”

‘Dark path’

The UK’s most senior Roman Catholic, the Archbishop of Westminster, has urged churches to contact their MP on the issue.

In a letter, Cardinal Vincent Nichols said assisted suicide pressures “those who are nearing death, from others or even from themselves, to end their life in order to take away a perceived burden of care from their family, for the avoidance of pain, or for the sake of an inheritance”.

He stated: “What is now proposed will not be the end of the story. It is a story better not begun.”

And the Roman Catholic Bishop of Shrewsbury Revd Mark Davies added: “If medical professionals, now sworn to protect the lives of patients, become those who assist in killing and suicide, how will our relationship change to those we look to for help and care? This is, indeed, a dark and sinister path on which we could be embarking”.

Vulnerable

The House of Commons last voted on the issue in 2015, when MPs overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to introduce assisted suicide by 330 votes to 118.

During the debate, Labour MP Lyn Brown said assisted suicide would “make the vulnerable more vulnerable”, while the SNP’s Dr Philippa Whitford remarked: “I have never considered, as a doctor, that death is a good treatment for anything”.

There are currently several attempts across the British Isles to legalise assisted suicide, including in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man.