Euthanasia - Letter from the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster, and the Chief Rabbi....

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, with the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor and the Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, have jointly written a letter to various newspapers today raising legitimate and fundamental concerns regarding the proposed legislation to protect from prosecution those who assist in the suicides of the terminally ill in the United Kingdom.

It seems to me that there is a danger here of well-intentioned but muddled thinking that can lead to even greater pressure to legalise assisted suicide/Euthanasia. I was talking this over with the CE of a medical charity recently who pointed out that many people who seek this option are doing so three years before they might actually die. That is three years of life, love and relationships curtailed well before they should be.

I particularly applaud the reference to the Hospice Movement in this letter - for that movement has done more for Dignified Tender Loving Care than is ever possible in a busy hospital ward. Yet it is the Hospice Movement that is treated as the Cinderella of our national medical provision when in reality its expansion could remove much of the misguided clamour for legalised Euthanasia.

I do not differentiate between voluntary and involuntary on this matter because the pressure towards this "exit route" is such that the boundaries between them are at best blurred.

The text of the letter:

SIR – Three years ago, a move to legalise physician-assisted suicide was defeated in the House of Lords. The debate on the Bill was heated and impassioned. It was also, by and large, respectful and serious.

Shortly before the Bill was debated in Parliament, the Royal College of Physicians asked its members if they thought the law needed changing. Over 70 per cent of those responding said the law against assisted suicide should stay the same. The Royal College of General Practitioners urged the same.

Now, by way of an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill, the legality of assisting people to end their own lives is again to be debated. The amendment seeks to protect from prosecution those who help friends or relatives to go abroad to commit suicide in one of the few countries where the practice is legal.

This would surely put vulnerable people at serious risk, especially sick people who are anxious about the burden their illness may be placing on others. Moreover, our hospice movement, an almost unique gift of this country to wider humankind, is the profound and tangible sign of another and better way to cope with the challenges faced by those who are terminally ill.
This amendment would mark a shift in British law towards legalising euthanasia. We do not believe that such a fundamental change should be sought by way of an amendment to an already complex Bill. It should be rejected.

The Most Rev Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster
Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi