In depth | Evangelicals Now

Assisted suicide? Justin Welby? It’s all about God

Matthew Roberts

There have been two questions I’ve been asked more than any others in the last few weeks. First, what do you think about assisted suicide? And second, what do you think about Justin Welby? There’s plenty that could be said in answer to both. But at heart, the answer I want to give is the same: It’s all about God.

Of course we want to talk about the ethics of medicine, the sanctity of life, the devaluing of the weak, the protection of the vulnerable, the application of justice to the wicked, the goodness of marriage, the sinfulness of sexual immorality, and many more things beside. But they are, in a sense, derivative; for all of God’s laws flow from God Himself. When terrible ethical failures happen, it is because there is first a failure to know and love the one true God.

Assisted suicide: how would Ebenezer Scrooge have voted?

Niv Lobo

Near the start of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens describes Scrooge as ‘a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone’. When a pair of portly philanthropists assail Scrooge on Christmas Eve, looking for a charitable donation, he says something that proves the description accurate. On being told some would rather die than go to the workhouse, Scrooge says, ‘they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population’.

It is a moment of heart-stopping heartlessness. In the peerless Muppet adaptation, Beaker and Doctor Bunsen Honeydew shake their heads in disbelief and consternation. This moment has signalled Scrooge’s unmistakeable depravity to generations of readers, staking out just how far his inhumanity goes — and therefore just how drastic his redemption will need to be.

Didn’t we have a lovely euthanasia debate…

David Robertson

There were several things about the recent debate in the House of Commons on euthanasia which were revelatory of where our society is at. They are lessons we need to learn.

I’m not talking about the obsession with autonomy – something which the elites of our society are desperate to believe in. They are used to getting things their way and cannot see why they should not be able to choose the time and place of their own death. Don’t fall for the line that this was all about preventing insufferable pain – the Leadbetter bill is not restricted to those who have unbearable pain. As has been amply demonstrated in other countries with euthanasia laws, the slippery slope into involuntary euthanasia is all too real. But my concern in this article is with three other issues.

Fight continues on assisted dying, campaigners insist

Nicola Laver

‘The fight is not over,’ campaigners are insisting, as the assisted suicide bill which passed its first hurdle in Parliament now faces more detailed scrutiny.

And evangelicals are likely to be encouraged to write to the House of Commons committee examining the proposed legislation in detail once details of its membership emerge.

The medical, moral and social case against assisted suicide

Bernard Palmer

Over the last 20 years there have been many unsuccessful attempts to change the law on physician assisted suicide. The recent debate and vote on this showed that there is much ignorance about the problem of death.

I was a surgeon with particular interest in Surgical Oncology, so often had to face issues of people who were facing death. The word ‘euthanasia’ literally meant ‘good death’ and this is something every caring physician wants for his patients who have a terminal disease. It is unfortunate that many now understand it to mean an accelerated death, a form of physician assisted suicide.

Seven reasons not to despair about the assisted suicide bill

Lucy Honeysett

How do we respond to Parliament’s decision to progress a bill to legalise assisted suicide? We don’t despair.

God has heard our prayers, He is sovereign, and we approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Heb. 4:16).

Two lessons from the assisted suicide debate

Graham Nicholls

Like many Christians and indeed others across the nation, I was saddened to hear the news that the UK parliament voted in favour of legalising assisted suicide.

As Christians, we are not opposed to the withdrawal of life-extending care, but we are against the active murder of anyone. Fundamentally, we believe that every life is sacred and unconditionally valuable - human dignity is not something we assign to ourselves and can then take it away when faced with illness, poverty, or disability.

Tim Farron: 'We should not walk away' from assisted dying debate

Tim Farron

Today has been the busiest Friday in the House of Commons for years.

Usually MPs are in our constituencies, focusing on local issues. But today, the Commons chamber was packed. Over 160 MPs sought to express their views on a bill to introduce assisted dying for adults with a terminal illness and less than six months to live.

Assisted suicide vote – evangelical reactions

Milla Ling-Davies

Evangelicals are processing the news that assisted suicide is a significant step closer to being legalised in the UK.

Following its second reading, MPs voted 330 to 275 today in favour of Kim Leadbeater’s bill –The draft Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – to legalise assisted suicide for people who have six months left to live, and who have mental capacity to make the choice.

Assisted suicide: Pressure mounts on MPs

Nicola Laver

Pressure is mounting on parliamentarians to oppose the new assisted dying bill in England and Wales. The draft Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill introduced by Kim Leadbetter is to be debated on 29 November – with a free vote taking place on the same day.

A Labour minister has warned this will not give time for the 38-page document to be sufficiently scrutinised in Parliament. Treasury minister Darren Jones said, given this is a Private Member’s bill, it will not get ‘anywhere near the same level of scrutiny and debate as the bills put forward by the government – and legalising assisted dying is far from a straightforward issue’.

Now This

Assisted suicide: Killing with kindness?

Bill James

We hear much about ‘Christian values’ of kindness, love, sympathy and understanding, not least at the Christmas season when we are encouraged to express ‘goodwill to all men’. I hope that as Christians we are kind; it is after all an element of the fruit of the Spirit.

But we need to beware a kindness which is divorced from any foundation in Christian morality. Some suggest that it is ‘unkind’ to question anyone’s lifestyle choices. But is it really ‘kind’ to give approval to someone who is choosing a reckless and ungodly path which will ultimately bring devastation to themselves, and to others? Is it ‘kind’ to remain silent about the gospel and wish others well on the broad road that leads inevitably to destruction?

Let’s call a spade a spade

Date posted: 12 Nov 2024

Dear Editor,

Have you noticed how people like to find fancy names to make ordinary things seem more special? For example, I have seen a window cleaner described as a Transparent Wall Maintenance Engineer, and did you know that the role of Education Centre Nourishment Consultant refers to what I once knew as a dinner lady!

The idol of autonomy in the West

James Mildred

If I asked you to name one of the great cultural idols of the secular Western world, what would you say? Materialism? Ease and comfort? Or what about autonomy?

It is the belief in autonomy that has fuelled the more than 10 million abortions that have taken place since 1967 when Parliament passed the legislation. In fact, the creed of the ‘pro-choice’ movement has as its chief article of faith a statement of autonomy: 'my body, my choice.'

Vote on assisted suicide looms – ‘A disaster in waiting’

Nicola Laver

Laws allowing for assisted suicide in England and Wales look increasingly likely, with Parliament expected to have a free vote on the issue within weeks. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government says the Scottish Parliament lacks power to pass assisted dying legislation in its current form.

A Private Member’s bill introduced mid-October by Labour MP Kim Leadbetter is to be debated in November. Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill introduced in the Lords in July is also due to have its second reading.

Hospice crisis fuels euthanasia fear as MPs deliberate

Milla Ling-Davies

As the Parliamentary debate for assisted dying approaches, fears are growing that the hospice funding crisis could make patients more likely to opt to die.

Parliament is gearing up to debate proposals to give terminally ill people in England and Wales the right to choose to end their life later this year. At the same time, hospices, who receive only a third of their funding through the NHS, have been calling for more government support as they face job cuts, bed cuts and even closure.

Beware the ‘optimism bias’ over assisted suicide

James Mildred

If you have ever done a driver’s awareness course (yes, this is autobiographical), there is a section where the instructor will ask you to grade yourself out of ten as a driver. Most people will select 7-9 as their self-assessment. Which is ironic given the course you are doing.

The instructor might then explain that science tells us there are three biases going on. Firstly, there is the optimism bias: we assume we will be fine and will never be involved in a serious prang or crash. Secondly, the what-about bias: we look back on times where we’ve overtaken on a bend and because it all worked out, we assume it will be fine again. Finally, there is the skill enhancement bias: we think we’re better drivers than we are.

A duty to ask to die? Disability and assisted dying

Kay Morgan-Gurr

Have you ever had anyone come up to you and say, ‘I’d rather be dead than be like you’?

I have, numerous times! Apparently, people would rather be dead because they can’t see why anyone could want to be alive if they use a wheelchair. And it’s not just physical disability - there are many people who have the same view of autism.

Pressure mounts for fresh vote on assisted suicide

Nicola Laver

Assisted suicide could be legalised in England and Wales within months, after reports that Downing Street would not obstruct a Private Member’s bill to introduce legislation. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has previously supported a law change and promised a free vote.

A so-called ‘citizen’s jury’ recently backed the legalising of assisted dying for the terminally ill.

Hospices warn on assisted dying

Nicola Laver

Hospices in the UK are warning of severe underfunding, leading to fears that if ‘assisted dying’ is legalised, it would lead to more terminally ill patients requesting it.

In July, a Private Member’s bill on assisted dying was introduced in the Lords, and CARE has warned that a ‘right to die’ would become a ‘duty to die’. The bill was introduced by Lord Falconer, who has been campaigning for legalising assisted dying for more than a decade.

politics & policy

Assisted suicide: a clash of two worldviews

James Mildred

In a column for The Times, commentator Matthew Parris said that legalising assisted suicide would put pressure on older people and those with a terminal illness to end their lives. In his view, this is a good thing.

In a similar article for the The Spectator, he said that legalising assisted suicide was simply the outworking of Darwinian social thought. Our moral codes, he argued, are driven by the Darwinian notion of the fight for survival, whether we accept this or not.

Assisted suicide: Lords debate

BMJ / Telegraph / Spectator / CARE

Evangelicals are awaiting the result of a House of Lords debate on assisted suicide scheduled for late October.

The bill aims to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales for terminally ill adults with six months or less left to live.

Assisted suicide Bill soundly rejected

CARE

The latest attempt to liberalise the current law and introduce assisted suicide has been comprehensively defeated in the Commons on Friday 11 September.

The Assisted Dying Bill (No 2) was soundly rejected by MPs at Second Reading with 330 MPs voting against the legislation and 118 voting in favour.

Disabled protest against assisted suicide Bill

The Christian Institute / Christian Medical Fellowship

On 14 July, disabled people descended on Westminster in droves to lobby MPs on Rob Marris’s Assisted Dying (no 2) Bill.

Marris seeks to give adults who are terminally ill and mentally competent the ‘right’ to have assistance to kill themselves using lethal drugs on the say-so of two doctors and one High Court judge. The Bill is due to have its second reading on 11 September.

In Depth: assisted suicide

Assisted suicide? Justin Welby? It’s all about God

Assisted suicide: how would Ebenezer Scrooge have voted?

Didn’t we have a lovely euthanasia debate…

Fight continues on assisted dying, campaigners insist

The medical, moral and social case against assisted suicide

Seven reasons not to despair about the assisted suicide bill

Two lessons from the assisted suicide debate

Tim Farron: 'We should not walk away' from assisted dying debate

Assisted suicide vote – evangelical reactions

Assisted suicide: Pressure mounts on MPs

Assisted suicide: Killing with kindness?

Let’s call a spade a spade

The idol of autonomy in the West

Vote on assisted suicide looms – ‘A disaster in waiting’

Hospice crisis fuels euthanasia fear as MPs deliberate

Beware the ‘optimism bias’ over assisted suicide

A duty to ask to die? Disability and assisted dying

Pressure mounts for fresh vote on assisted suicide

Hospices warn on assisted dying

Assisted suicide: a clash of two worldviews

Assisted suicide: Lords debate

Assisted suicide Bill soundly rejected

Disabled protest against assisted suicide Bill

Useful links

Keep in touch

Subscribe

Important info.