A former Archbishop of Canterbury is urging Church of England bishops in the House of Lords to back calls to legalise assisted dying.
Lord Carey’s stance on the issue differs from that of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York who say making it legal to help someone who is terminally ill end their life is a “slippery slope”. They fear it could pressurise some people into making that decision for fear of being a burden on their loved ones.
However Lord Carey has told The Guardian that the 26 Lords Spiritual should “be on the side of those who … want a dignified, compassionate end to their lives”.
He was speaking after a bill calling for assisted dying to be legalised was introduced to Parliament this week by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater. The bill will be debated by MPs at the end of November.
Lord Carey, who retired as Archbishop in 2002, described the bill as “necessary, compassionate and principled”. He added that it was “ironic that I will represent the vast majority of Anglicans who favour change, and the bishops in the House of Lords will not”.
Support for assisted dying among Church of England priests has grown significantly in the last nine years. In 2023, a survey of 1,185 Church of England priests by The Times found that 35.5 percent supported a compassionate assisted dying law, compared to 22 percent in 2014.
Lord Carey said the opposition of many faith leaders was “largely based on fear:of a slippery slope; or that some relatives will coerce vulnerable people; or the example of other nations where assisted dying for those at the end of life has been widened to include those suffering from other conditions. My response is that we must have a strong law that resists abuse… church leaders have often shamefully resisted change. Let’s not follow that trend.”
“Let’s be on the side of those who, at the end of their lives want a dignified, compassionate end to their lives…Pain medication and palliative care has made great strides but there are intractable cases of suffering at the very end of life where this law change will make a real difference.”
However speaking to Premier, the former Bishop of Worcester Rt Rev John Inge said losing his first wife Denise to a terminal illness in 2014 made him opposed to legalising assisted dying:
“I’m passionately opposed to assisted dying for a number of reasons, partly from my own experience with my late wife, but more crucially, because I’m a Christian and because of the effect that it will have on the more vulnerable in our society.
“I believe that life is a gift, and it’s not for us to tamper with that gift. It’s for us to accept it, however hard it might be, for however long God wills.”
Bishop John who retired earlier this month, said that losing his wife had “moved my opposition from the head to the heart, in the sense that I’d always been opposed to assisted dying, but after Denise was diagnosed, the prognosis was awful. There was no hope. She would have been eligible for assisted dying and I think had it been available, she might well have opted for it because of the suffering that she knew she was going to go through. And to my shame, I might have been willing to support her in that.
“But she opted for chemotherapy and it gave us eight or nine precious months together, which I wouldn’t sacrifice for the world.”
