Assisted dying bill ‘must be resisted’, Bishop of Blackburn says

Plans to legalise assisted dying “must be resisted strongly by people of faith”, a bishop has said.

A bill was introduced before Parliament on Wednesday which, if enacted, would give terminally ill people in England and Wales the right to end their lives.

The Bishop of Blackburn, the Right Reverend Philip North, said he agreed with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s concerns that it could lead to a “slippery slope” in which more people feel compelled to have their life ended medically.

But Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who introduced the bill, has said the law would only cover those who were terminally ill and suffering at the end of their life.

Polling in recent years has consistently suggested 60-75% of the British public supported assisted dying.

Earlier this week Ms Leadbeater, MP for Spen Valley in West Yorkshire, told BBC Newsnight that “the status quo is not fit for purpose”.

She said: “Unfortunately I have spent time with lots of families who have been through similar, horrendous, end-of-life situations and that was one of the reasons I wanted to put this legislation forward.”

Bishop North, who has oversight of 272 Church of England parishes across Lancashire, encouraged Christians in the county to outline their views by writing to their MP, warning that “seemingly simple solutions often have unintended consequences”.

“It is my strongly held conviction that the legislation currently before Parliament must be resisted and resisted strongly by people of faith and I invite you to do so,” he said.

The bishop called for better palliative and social care for terminally ill patients and warned safeguards could be “dropped” were assisted dying to be legalised.

He also said “medical killing will become more and more the norm”.

The bishop added: “Once the precedent has been set that medical staff are permitted to administer life-ending drugs, there can be no doubt at all that the range of cases in which this is permitted will increase.”

Bishop North said he believed assisted dying would “inevitably put pressure on elderly people and those who are near to death to put an end to their lives”.

He warned “to relieve some people of physical pain, we will subject countless more to intolerable mental pain and torment”.

He said he was motivated by his belief that human life was “God’s gift” and that “our life flows from God and will find its fulfilment in God. Our life is not our own possession”.

A second reading of the bill will be heard in Parliament on 29 November.