The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW) has slammed assisted suicide as “inherently wrong” in its submission to an ongoing Inquiry considering its legalisation. Bishops also criticised the Inquiry’s disingenuous language in referring to assisted suicide as “assisted dying”.
Bishop John Sherrington, representing the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, has submitted evidence to a Health and Social Care Select Committee Inquiry into legalising assisted suicide.
Writing in summary, the CBCEW concluded: “Assisted suicide is inherently wrong and the evidence from other jurisdictions shows there can be no safe or limited assisted suicide law.”
The CBCEW raised several concerns, including the “slippery slope” that is evident in such nations as Canada, where assisted suicide killed over 10,000 Canadians in 2021, as reported by SPUC.
Catholic bishops warn that assisted suicide forwards “a false view of ‘compassion’” that “would likely result in the dangerous degradation of people living with disabilities”, part of a broader “dehumanising effect” evident in countries where such legislation has been enacted.
Its submission also noted that assisted suicide “would gravely undermine the vocation of healthcare professionals to care for life until its natural end”.
The CBCEW has recommended “greater Government investment in the availability and accessibility of specialist palliative care across the country” instead.
As well as condemning assisted suicide, the Church criticised the Inquiry’s framing of the debate through “the use of the term ‘assisted dying’” that, the CBCEW said, essentially “endorses the euphemism that assisted suicide is compassionate assistance in dying rather than the prescription of lethal medication”.
In 2022, the General Synod of the Church of England voted overwhelmingly against assisted suicide legislation being introduced in the UK. It also recommended better-funded palliative care.
SPUC stands with CBCEW
SPUC’s Michael Robinson, Executive Director (Public Affairs and Legal Services), said: “Assisted suicide is not an answer to suffering and illness but a means of eliminating problem people – a radical and wholly unacceptable shift in ethic that would all but give up on the most vulnerable people in society.
“The CBCEW is right to call out the language being used to manipulate the assisted suicide debate. It is even more vital that the public be made aware of the facts of assisted suicide, including the horrific death toll in Canada.
“At the moment when the effects of the ‘slippery slope’ are becoming ever more explicit, when assisted suicide is now being advanced as a solution to mental illness and even poverty, Britain must realise that this is not a path we want to go down.”